Blood Angel

by Bernard Schaffer

  “So, can you move your car?”

  Carrie pulled into the vacant lot across from the trailer and watched Ichabod hustle to his car and hop in. The wheels on his police car spun as he jammed it in reverse and cranked the wheel, kicking up dirt and dust. He cranked the wheel the other way and stepped on the gas, gunning it as he raced toward the trailer park exit.

  She grabbed her evidence bag from her trunk and lugged it across the street. Jimmy waved at her from the trailer’s entrance. He was fresh-faced and chubby. His uniform was too old to belong to him and didn’t fit well. Small departments don’t get new officers measured for uniforms, she thought. They just handed you down whatever they had in the closet.

  “Did he have somewhere to go?” she asked.

  “No, he just don’t do dead bodies, is all,” Jimmy said.

  “How can you be a cop and not do dead bodies?”

  “I guess he just has me do them instead.”

  Okay, Carrie thought. “So, what do we have?”

  Jimmy pulled a small spiral notepad out of his left shirt pocket and flipped it open. “Manager said this lady was a few days late on her rent. He tried getting hold of her and she wouldn’t answer the door. He made entry with the master key. Found her dead.”

  “How’d she die?”

  Jimmy checked his notes. “Manager didn’t say.”

  “What did it look like when you went in?”

  Jimmy looked up at her in confusion. “We didn’t go in.”

  Carrie shoved her evidence bag against his chest with a thud. “Here we go. You’re carrying this. Write down the time and Detective Santero, arrived on scene. Entry made. Got it?”

  “We’re doing a crime scene log?” Jimmy asked. “I thought this was just a regular suicide.”

  “Everything’s regular right up until it isn’t,” Carrie said. “Let’s go.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He struggled to maneuver the bag as he checked his watch for the time, then wrote everything down on his notepad.

  Carrie pulled out her phone and snapped several photos of the trailer’s entrance. She leaned in and grabbed a few close-ups of the front door and lock, documenting that it was undamaged. No forced entry, she thought. Manager’s story about making entry checked out. So far, so good.

  She leaned her head in and instantly reeled back at the stench of decaying flesh.

  The trailer’s entrance was filled with trash bags stuffed with clothes, and cardboard boxes marked KITCHEN, BATHROOM, CLOTHES, and more. They were all taped shut.

  “How long has she lived here?” Carrie asked.

  “Manager didn’t say.”

  Carrie slid on a pair of nitrile gloves and handed a pair to Jimmy, waiting for him to do the same. She raised her cell phone and snapped photographs as she walked inside the trailer, getting pictures of it from one end to the other. She slid her phone inside her jeans pocket and stopped, scanning the room before taking another step.

  More trash bags and boxes, stacked along the right side of the trailer. The dining section was a small fixed table and built-in seats along the wall with ripped cushions. Bags and boxes were stacked there as well. On the opposite side of the trailer was the kitchenette. A counter and sink, set between rows of cheap particleboard cabinets.

  Every flat surface in the kitchen area was covered in filth. Beer bottles filled with cigarette butts. Paper plates smeared with grease and dried pizza sauce. There were unopened letters from the utility company marked URGENT—PAYMENT DUE scattered on the floor. Carrie stepped over them, making her way toward the back of the trailer where the dead body sat.

  The woman was sitting upright in bed with her arms at her sides. Her head was cocked sideways so that she was looking at Carrie. Her eyes were bulging and vacant. Her blond hair was cut jagged, uneven, and short, like she’d cut it herself with a pair of electric clippers.

  She was dressed in a soiled pink nightgown, now stained yellow and brown by the release of her body’s secretions.

  Around the woman’s throat was a pair of tan nylon stockings, tied into a knot under her chin. The other end of the stockings was stretched up to the roof and tied around the handle of the skylight.

  “What’s her name?” Carrie asked. She saw Jimmy look down at his notepad again. “Wait. Let me guess. Manager didn’t say.”

  Carrie bent down to scoop up several bills from the floor. They were all addressed to Brenda Drake, at that address. Carrie sifted through the letters and set them aside.

  She moved closer to the body. The stench was horrific. It would only get worse when they moved her. At that moment, all the remaining fluids inside Brenda Drake had settled deep inside of her. When they cut the nylons holding her upright and started jostling her to maneuver her body out of the trailer, all those putrefied fluids were going to slosh around. Things would spill out of her from all kinds of places.

  Death investigation is a disgusting business. I must have been an idiot for wanting to do it more often when I was young, she thought.

  On the nightstand next to the bed were more bottles filled with cigarettes, and a cell phone and keys. Laying on top of them was an open letter, written by hand.

  Who sends handwritten letters anymore? Carrie thought. She picked it up and read.

  My Dearest Brenda,

  I so look forward to seeing you at our reunion.

  I long to look upon your lovely face, to relive everything we had before.

  All that we might have yet.

  Carrie read the letter’s signature, a sprawling thing in elaborate script.

  Until Then, I Remain,

  The Master

  5

  Carrie walked into the Vieira County District Attorney’s Office just as a flood of people came pouring out through the front door. She had to step aside to let them pass. In the center of the crowd, she saw Salvatore Vigoda, the oldest detective in the office, following the rest. “What happened, Sal? Bomb threat?”

  “Worse,” Sal said. “Black mold. They found it in the vents. They’re shutting down this entire section of the courthouse until they can get it cleaned.”

  Sal had retired as a patrol sergeant and come to work at the county detectives a short time before Carrie was hired. Technically, he was the second-most junior person in the office, just above her. Most of his police experience involved little more than writing tickets and handling car crashes. He knew next to nothing when it came to detailed investigations and complicated prosecutions, but he looked like he’d been on the job since Prohibition. He looked like someone’s old Italian grandfather, with thick, black framed glasses and a large, beak-shaped nose. He always wore a fedora. Carrie liked the fedora. It seemed old school.

  She found Harv Bender at the back of the line, just as one of the maintenance workers was shutting the doors and locking them. “I heard we had some black mold, Chief,” she said.

  Bender scowled. “These sons of bitches. I’ve been a cop for thirty years. Made tons of arrests. Survived a thousand violent encounters. I caught two serial killers! None of it left a scratch. But you watch. I’ll die of some black mold bullshit I got infected with just sitting in my goddamn office.”

  “Right,” Carrie said. “Listen, can I run in there real quick? I have to check for previous contacts with my suicide victim in the archives.”

  “The office is closed, Detective. We’re all relocated until further notice. Anything you need in there will have to wait. Anyway, your suicide victim isn’t going anywhere, is she?”

  Carrie looked back at the office. People bumped into her as they filed past. “No, I guess not,” she said.

  * * *

  The courthouse was shut down while environmental contractors came in with sensors and ventilation machines and chemicals to prevent the mold from spreading. All trials and hearings were postponed until further notice.

  When the contractors looked, they saw that the air filters leading into the DA’s office hadn’t been changed in years. Maybe not changed since th
e original ventilation system was installed when the building was built. Black mold spores had taken root deep inside the air ducts of that entire wing, and the cost to fix it was enough to make the county commissioners angry.

  The facilities staff for the courthouse said they weren’t even aware there were filters in that area. The facilities staff manager said it wasn’t his people’s fault, because replacing the filters had never appeared on any of their work orders. It helped that the facility staff manger was related to the chairman of the county commissioners.

  Somehow, it then became the DA’s office staff’s fault that the filters were never changed or checked. The decision was made to temporarily relocate the entire staff, including the district attorney, all of his assistant district attorneys, and the county detectives, to other locations.

  Most of them were able to fit into the Children and Youth Services office, located in the basement of the Juvenile Justice building. CYS had a good space, with several bathrooms, a kitchen, and multiple mousetraps set up in every corner to try and clear out the rodents that had infested the building.

  Anybody who couldn’t fit at CYS was parceled out to various county-owned facilities wherever there were vacant offices. A detective and two ADA’s were sent to a back room in the radio repair garage. A detective, an ADA, and an intern were sent to occupy the spare desks at the park rangers’ headquarters. Carrie sat at home until her phone rang and Harv Bender told her he’d found a spot for her. “Good news,” he said. “You got your own command post. Hope you feel special. I’ll text you the address.”

  “Meaning, you’re sticking me in a trailer,” she said.

  “It’s got phones, computers, the whole nine. Plus, there won’t be people bugging you out there. Here we can’t go five minutes without somebody screaming because they saw a mouse. One ran up a secretary’s arm while she was on the phone, and I thought they’d have to tranquilize her.”

  “Am I out there by myself?” she asked. She didn’t mind the thought of that. Her own place to work, uninterrupted.

  “Just about.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You’ll be with your buddy Sal,” Bender said. “He’ll probably sleep the whole time. Just stick a mirror under his nose before you leave each day to make sure he’s still breathing.”

  “Very funny,” Carrie said, and hung up the phone.

  * * *

  She copied the address into her phone’s GPS but it didn’t register. The only thing it could find in the area was Bubba and Zeke’s Gun Store. Under the address were photos of two smiling hillbillies with beards, posing with various weapons.

  She knew the stretch of road. It was an old two-lane highway that used to connect to the turnpike before they’d built a newer four-lane highway on the other side of town. There wasn’t much left on it, from what she recalled. Just hillbillies with big guns now, she thought. Perfect.

  She drove to the gun shop. It was a small building with a yellowed sign out front that said GET YOUR GUNS BEFORE THE DEMO-RATS TAKE THEM! The glass door was covered in bumper stickers. THIS IS MAGA COUNTRY. LOCK HER UP!

  The word Open blinked in red neon from the store’s front. Above it was a sign that read LOCAL MILITIA RESUPPLY STATION.

  She opened the door. Rows of handguns in glass display cases ran the length of the store, with racks of long guns mounted on the walls behind them. Posters of women in bikinis holding AK-47’s were thumbtacked to the walls above the long guns. The rest of the store was filled with targets and holsters and hunting gear.

  Speakers mounted in the corners of the ceiling crackled with a radio talk show. Someone was frantically describing the invasion at the Mexican border and how real Americans were going to have to take up arms to defend it themselves if the liberals in the government wouldn’t allow the military to do it.

  Bubba, the heavyset one with the black beard, was seated behind the counter looking at a motorcycle magazine. Zeke, the smaller one with a red beard, was inventorying boxes of 9mm ammunition. Both stopped what they were doing when she walked in.

  “Uh-oh, it’s a lady cop. Look out, Zeke,” Bubba said. He turned down the radio. “Did Hillary send you?”

  “Not this time,” Carrie said. She showed him the address for the trailer on her phone and said, “Do you know where this is?”

  Bubba peered at the phone’s screen. “That’s still down the road a piece, near the Carver Dam sign. ‘Bout two more miles.”

  Carrie thanked him and put her phone away. The top row of guns in the case in front of her were all revolvers. Everything from compact snub-noses to massive long-barreled weapons the diameter of a silver dollar.

  “You want to see our lady guns?” Bubba asked.

  “What are lady guns?”

  “Down here,” he said, waving for her to follow him. He showed her a display case of purple and pink weapons. Some of them were laser engraved with the American flag. Others had faces etched into their frames, surrounded by stars and eagles. Bubba pointed to one of the guns with a baby’s face etched into it. “Zeke just did that. He’s a whiz with the engraver, but it was my idea. We used to just do famous people. Sold a lot of Trumps and Rush Limbaughs. Then I got the idea that hey, you know how people get their baby’s faces tattooed on their arms? What if instead they got it tattooed on their guns?” He looked at Zeke. “Ain’t that right?”

  “Now they can shoot their baby at people if they want,” Zeke said.

  “You got any babies, lady cop?” Bubba asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, keep us in mind when you do.”

  Carrie kept looking. The display case next to the register had rows of noise-suppressors and attachments people could add on to their firearms. Flashlights and laser sights and the like. There was even a grenade-launcher attachment for an AR-15 on the bottom shelf for a thousand dollars and a sign next to it that read FOR SIGNAL FLARE USE ONLY! ATTENTION UNDERCOVER FEDERAL AUTHORITIES, THIS PRODUCT NOT TO BE USED FOR ARMED PROJECTILES! WE AUTOMATICALLY INVOKE OUR RIGHT TO AN ATTORNEY!

  “Get a lot of undercover feds in here?” Carrie asked.

  “That’s the kind of thing you don’t know until it’s too late, ain’t it?” Bubba tapped on the glass and said, “You want to see something cool? It just came in and I haven’t had the chance to show anybody yet.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  Bubba reached under the counter for a black plastic case. He laid it in front of her and popped the snaps on either side. Carrie leaned forward to see what was in the case and said, “Wow.”

  He reached into the thick foam and got his fingers around the gun’s silver frame. It was as large as his hand. “This right here’s a Colt 1911 forty-five caliber in chrome. It’s their top-of-the-line model, made right here in the United States up in Hartford, Connecticut. Everything you see on this gun is from authentic natural materials. I’m talking about steel. I’m talking about wood. Every component. One hundred percent real, no plastic. Every component fitted by a master gunsmith, by hand. You know how rare that is nowadays? Zeke, how rare is that?”

  “That’s rare,” Zeke said.

  “That’s right. So, you got one of the finest guns made in the world, but that’s not what makes this piece so special.” Bubba tapped the black electronic device mounted beneath the gun’s frame, it looked like something from science fiction. “What you’re looking at right here is something nobody else has. We’re the only ones. This baby is a prototype designed by Australian Special Forces.”

  “What does it do?”

  Bubba smirked. “Zeke, come on over here so we can show the lady cop what this does.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Come on now.”

  “No!” Zeke said, and he ran around the corner for the door that let him into the back room.

  Bubba watched him go, then leaned closer to Carrie and said, “He’s still mad at me from the last time. I used it on him and he wound up on the floor rolling around in his own piss.”
<
br />   “Is it a laser sight?” Carrie asked.

  “It’s got a laser sight and a flashlight,” Bubba said. He tapped a button on the side and said, “But it’s also got this. A special high-intensity strobe that can cause a seizure if you look at it. I didn’t believe it when I heard it, but then I used it on Zeke, and sure enough, he went straight down. Pissed all over his self.”

  “Jesus,” Carrie said. “Keep that thing away from me.”

  Bubba closed the case and said, “You don’t even want to know how much it costs.”

  “More than I can afford, that’s for sure,” she said.

  Bubba slid the case back under the counter. “You ever need anything, come on back. We give a law enforcement discount.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” Carrie said. She called out, “See you later, Zeke!” but there was no response from the back.

  * * *

  The trailer was better than she’d expected. She’d assumed Bender was talking about some dilapidated mobile home like the one Brenda Drake had. The kind that was seized in a drug bust and still smelled like a meth lab. At worst, she feared they’d rent some ancient Airstream trailer made of aluminum that cooked you like a turkey on a hot day.

  Instead, the county had borrowed a foreman’s trailer from Meditz Construction, a local company that bought farmland and turned it into high-end housing developments in the area. The trailer had windows and a wooden porch with steps leading up to the front door. There was a large heating and air conditioning unit mounted to one side, and as Carrie walked up, she could hear it humming along nicely.

  The trailer was parked off the highway next to a closed gas station. The land surrounding it was nothing but high yellow grass that glinted with broken glass from all of the trash people tossed out of their windows as they drove past. An old wooden sign for the Carver Dam and Reservoir stood on the side of the road and Carrie couldn’t see any water through the thick grass, but she could smell it. It was rank and stunk of rotting vegetation.

  They were out in the middle of nowhere, with no reason for anyone to want to come visit them, and that was fine by Carrie. She wasn’t the kind to need people around her to do her job. She didn’t crave the company of others or need human interaction at the water cooler. As she walked up the steps to the trailer’s front door, she thought, I could get used to this.