The Braille Killer (An Alice Bergman Novel Book 1)

by Daniel Kuhnley

  Those letters are to be kept between me and the sicko who sends them. He’s made it perfectly clear. I will catch him if it’s the last thing I do. He’s the reason I studied criminology, joined the force, and worked my way up to detective. In some twisted way I guess I can thank him for that.

  Seth weaves his fingers into mine and presses me up against the lockers with my hands over my head. He leans down, and his hot breath moistens my skin just before his soft lips caress the side of my neck. I moan, louder than I’d expected and flinch. I scan the locker room and find we’re still alone.

  “Seth, we can’t—”

  He leans into me, nibbles on my lower lip, and pulls on it. I wish I could forget where we are and give into the moment but too many things niggle my mind. Anyone could walk in and see us together. His gun digs into my ribs a little, and perspiration trickles down my nape, under my arms, and into places I don’t even want to think about.

  The air conditioning units have been on the fritz all summer. It must be a hundred degrees in here. I doubt they’ll ever get fixed.

  I push Seth away with reluctance, but his hands stay locked in mine. I smile. “Save it for tonight.”

  He presses into me again. “What’s wrong with right now?”

  “Oh geez, get a room.” Officer Todd appears in my peripheral view.

  Seth backs away and releases my hands. I look over at Officer Todd. “Your timing is impeccable, Tommy.”

  Seth turns and winks at Officer Todd. “I’m afraid the show’s over, buddy. Better get here earlier next time. Doors open at 6 am.”

  I roll my eyes at Seth. “The only times you’ve ever seen 6 am is when you’ve been awake all night.”

  Seth hooks his thumbs in his front pockets. “Pfft. Stay the night with me, and I’ll be up anytime you want. Guaranteed.”

  Tommy’s cheeks turn red and his gaze falls to the floor. “Don’t you guys have somewhere to be? Some corpse to unbury or some killer to hunt down?”

  Seth nods. “Every day, buddy. Death never sleeps.”

  Tommy shakes his head and walks over to his locker. He puts one hand over the lock so that we can’t see his combination and spins the dial back and forth with his other hand. It clicks, pops, and then the door groans open.

  Tommy’s only been on the force for three weeks, but he’s already made a lasting impression on me. His elongated forehead and alien-shaped face reminds me of Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show. Much like Fife, he’s a beat cop down on South Central Blvd. Not a place I’d want to be assigned.

  Thomas Terrence Todd. What were his parents thinking? He goes by Trip T in the rap world. My eyes tear up, and I snort so violently that it pangs my throat.

  Seth frowns at me. “What’s so funny?”

  I shake my head and walk toward the exit. Sometimes it’s the best thing to do. “Be safe out there, Tommy. I don’t want you to be my next call.”

  He nods as I walk by. “You, too.”

  Seth follows me out of the locker room and down the main corridor like a leashed dog. My leashed dog. We’re like Turner & Hooch. I snort again and cough. If he knew some of my thoughts, he wouldn’t be so eager to stand at my side. Then again, I can’t even imagine what goes through his mind at times. Don’t think I want to.

  We stop by our shared office and I freeze in the doorway. The light on my desk phone flashes like an ambulance and my breath catches in my throat. I look over at Seth’s desk. His isn’t flashing. My pulse begins to race and sweat beads on my brow. No one ever calls my desk phone anymore. I check my cell phone, but I’ve missed no calls and have no messages.

  I walk into the office and round my desk. The stale, hot air weighs on me like a dense fog and I have to sit down to keep my legs from buckling underneath the crushing weight. My throat muscles contract, and I fight to catch my breath.

  I look up. Seth is eying my desk phone.

  His gaze moves to me and locks on mine. “Are you going to check it?”

  I swallow hard and nod once, certain that if I were to answer vocally, I’d only squeak like a mouse. My breath catches with every blink of the red light and the tension in my jaw ratchets up another level.

  Red… just like the ‘A’ on the envelope. I know it’s him. It must be.

  Seth settles in his chair and drums his fingers on the leather armrests.

  I exhale, pull my desk phone close, and stare at it for several moments before finally picking up the receiver. I press the red button and enter my 6-digit code on the dial pad.

  I stare at Seth as the message plays. Static crackles and pops for several seconds like it does at the beginning of a 45 record and then a music box begins to play in the background. I know it’s a music box because I had one when I was little and because the metal strips flicking against the nubs on the metal roller are so distinctive. The tune it plays is familiar, but I can’t recall its name or where I’ve heard it before.

  A gruff, male voice talks over the music and pulls me down into the depths of my past. “Five one four three Elm Street. I took my time with her. She never saw me coming. Blind girls never do.” He laughs. “Fifteen years old. She was ripe for the plucking. Sarah Johnson’s blood is on your hands, Detective Bergman. How many more will you kill?”

  The music stops, the line clicks, and then the message ends.

  My fingers tremble as I press the button and delete the message. I set the receiver back down on its cradle and exhale. My heart thunders. This day is unrelenting. I pinch the bridge of my nose and lean back in my chair.

  Several seconds go by as Seth’s brow wrinkles and then furrows, and his eyes narrow until nothing but slits remain of them. “Well? What did the message say?”

  The blood is on your hands. I look down at my crimson-stained hands and cringe. They’re not actually red, but it doesn’t stop me from picturing them that way.

  I look Seth in the eye and tell him what he needs to know. “Anonymous call. A body’s been discovered.”

  He slams his fist into the chair arm. “Damn. I’d hoped today would be a good day.”

  “So did I.” I know how the rest of this conversation will go. I can feel it in my bones, and my heart’s already aching. I know all the questions he’ll ask me and the things I must withhold.

  “Give me the breakdown.”

  I close my eyes. “A young girl. Early teens. Looks to have been raped.”

  “Damn.” Seth slams his fist into his desk and my eyes shoot open.

  A stack of case files tilts and then falls on the floor with a smack, and his phone’s receiver jumps out of its cradle. He picks the receiver back up and slams it back home. It wouldn’t surprise me if he cracked the whole damn phone.

  Seth rolls his chair around the side of his desk and scoops up the splayed files. “You get a location?”

  “Five one four three Elm Street.” My eyes are open, but I stare into a world made of nightmares. Seth says something to me, but fear renders me deaf and his words fade into the ambient noise of buzzing fluorescent lights.

  The blood is on your hands.

  My stomach twists in knots, and I cannot move. My feet root themselves to the floor and my arms to the chair. I fight back tears of anger and shame from a decade’s worth of neglected emotions.

  When I return to our world Seth is on his phone with Officer Janice, reporting the tip. He hangs up and stands. “Ready to roll? Officers Spalding and Dupree are right down the street from the scene and forensics should be rolling up on it soon as well. They were just a block over wrapping up another scene.”

  I reach deep within and find the strength to rise from my chair. “After you.”

  As we walk out to the unmarked sedan my mind returns to the call. Blind. It’s no coincidence. He’s killed, and I know why. I cringe as a single thought sears my mind like a cattle brand and marks me as the monster I am.

  She’s dead because of me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seth
rockets through the streets, squealing tires around corners and laying on the horn relentlessly. The veins in his neck and arms bulge like he’s on a roid rage, and his knuckles are stark white against the black leather steering wheel, his fingers vise-gripped around it.

  I keep one hand braced on the dashboard and place the other on Seth’s leg. “Slow down, Seth. This is exactly why Lieut. Frost is on your case. Not every call we respond to is an emergency.”

  “You don’t know that.” His words push through gritted teeth. “I arrived moments too late once before. Never again.”

  For the past two years Seth has been everything to me. He came into my life when I was at one of my lowest points I can remember. I’d all but given up on finding the sicko that had haunted me for eight years.

  It took Seth more than a year to open up to me about his sister’s murder and even then, I had to pry the words from his sealed lips. I try my best to be there for him when he needs me, but I am a shell of a person as well. We are two souls filled with pent-up emotions and no outlet to relieve the pressure.

  I squeeze his thigh. “I know, and I’m sorry, but getting there quickly today won’t bring this girl back to life. She’s already dead.” Those last words drive a spike through my heart.

  All the blood is on your hands.

  Sorrow and rage brew in the pit of my stomach like a bad chimichanga, so I focus my thoughts on the people in my life that matter. Truth be told, there are only three of them: Mother, Seth, and Veronica.

  My mother, Gladys, tells me often that Seth is a sign from God. Of course she thinks everything is a sign from God. I love her with all my heart, but she’s a bit batty and drives me crazy with all her religious banter.

  I believe in God’s existence about as much as I believe in destiny or fate, and I’ve told her as much on numerous occasions. How she believes in something so intangible is beyond me. If he existed, I wouldn’t be in this car right now chasing down a psycho who had raped and killed a blind girl.

  I look down and see that I’m clutching my cross pendant between my finger and thumb. When did my hand move from the dashboard? I sigh and stuff it inside my shirt. Why I still have it and wear it daily eludes me. It’s a meaningless symbol, but I can’t seem to rid myself of it. It haunts me like the nightmares of my past. Like the psycho we’re chasing now.

  Veronica’s my best friend. She has been for the past eleven years. She’s a bit neurotic at times and I love her for it. She’d gladly be my better half if I were into that sort of thing but I’m not. I wish she’d move on and find someone who could return her love.

  Seth slams on the brakes and I gasp as it snaps me out of my thoughts. I recover just in time to catch myself from rearranging my face with the dashboard but tweak my left wrist in the process. I shake off the twinge. Seth peels his hands off the wheel, slams the car into park, throws his seatbelt off, and is out the car door before I have a chance to take another breath.

  The door thwacks shut, and it jolts me. I unbuckle my seatbelt, throw my door open wide, and let the darkness rush into me like it has the last several days. My vision darkens, my chest heaves, and I hear myself hyperventilating, but there’s nothing I can do but wait it out. This seems to be my future. This is my cross to bear. My penance for surviving. The reason I wake up each morning.

  All the blood is on your hands. I’m certain this one’s on me.

  The moment of darkness passes, and my vision returns. I pull myself from the car, step up on the curb, and push the door closed behind me. We aren’t the first ones to arrive on scene. We might in fact be the last.

  Dirt, rocks, weeds, and trash precede the three-foot-tall chain-link fence that surrounds the front yard of the house. The fence has seen better days; its top pipe is bent down in several places and a few sections of its chain-link are ripped open and droop down. Frowns on sad clowns.

  The yard is comprised of dirt and weeds, with a few tufts of grass here and there. A skeleton tree looms over the left side of the house, a vampire ready to sink its teeth into its helpless victim.

  The house, little more than a rundown shack, sits back on the lot about a hundred feet. Its dull yellow stucco is stained brown in several places from water damage and age, and several sections of the stucco are missing altogether. It reminds me of the marred face of a zombie from The Walking Dead.

  The front-facing windows are missing their screens, and the glass is scarred in several places with lengths of aluminum tape that cover and bind the fissures in them. Band-aids amongst gaping wounds. The only thing fresh about the property is the yellow-and-black crime scene tape draped along the chain-link fence.

  I walk over to the gate. It’s unhinged at the bottom and is opened into the yard at an unnatural angle. Only the bolts for its latch remain. I look around, but the latch is nowhere to be found. To the right of the gate is a beat-up, gray mailbox that sits atop a metal pole rusted with age. The box is dented, and two of the four numbers on it have been lost with age, leaving only a one and a three.

  Thirteen. We’re on Elm Street, and the irony isn’t lost on me. The day’s certainly been a nightmare already and I know it’s about to get worse.

  Officer Dupree stands to the left of the opened gate, clipboard in hand. I lift the crime scene tape and stoop underneath it. “Morning, Officer Dupree.”

  He nods as he writes my name in the entry log. His eyes are red and a bit swollen. “This one’s the worst I’ve seen.” He has a daughter of his own about the same age, so his grief is understandable.

  I return his nod and chart my course through the yard. Shattered concrete slabs, a semblance of what was once a sidewalk, lay before me. Weeds jut up from the cracks between and through them. I navigate the maze-like path toward the sagging porch. When I reach the porch, I turn around and take in the entire neighborhood.

  Not a single yard is kept up. There are couches on curbs, washing machines and old refrigerators on what once were lawns, and trash and decay everywhere. Several cars line the street in various stages of disarray and disrepair, some of them with broken windows and flat tires, and a few stripped of their doors, fenders, and hoods.

  One police cruiser sits in the driveway and another in the street to my left, behind Seth’s unmarked sedan. Several people stand in their yards and others on their porches, all curious of the police activity but none bold enough to approach the outer fence.

  None of them look like killers to me. Then again, anyone can be a killer given the right circumstance. I wonder if the psycho is watching right now. My skin crawls on my arms, and I rub them.

  A funk I cannot quite identify permeates the air and wrinkles my nose. Perhaps it’s all the trash and animal feces piled in the surrounding yards, but I can’t be certain. However, I’m positive it’s not the body awaiting me inside. That smell will be far worse.

  I turn back toward the house and cringe, knowing full well what I’m about to walk into. The yellowish-white door stands open, its paint cracked, chipped, and peeling. Its handle hangs loose on stripped screws like a nearly severed hand. The porch roof sags nearly a foot in the middle, and I wonder if it’ll give up the fight and collapse on my head when I walk underneath it.

  I move forward and step up onto the concrete porch. A brown, rubber mat butts up against the small step that leads into the house. Worn, blackish-white letters spell out ‘Willkommen’ on its face. German. It reminds me of home.

  I step across the mat and then up into the house. Immediately, I’m met with a heatwave of ripe odors ranging from sweat and BO to feces and urine. How do people live this way?

  Dingy, dirt-colored carpet flows throughout the house, but there’s more plywood showing through its gaping holes than actual carpet, and they’re both covered in yellow, brown, and black stains left from God-only-knows-what. The filth is so thick, and the fibers are so matted that I’m uncertain of the carpet’s original color or pile.

  I navigate toward the back of the four-room house and th
at’s when the pungent odor hits me like a brick to the face. I stagger from the stench, and I am forced to use the wall to guide myself down the hallway. Grime collects under my fingers as they slide along its rough, oily surface. I imagine I’ve left streaks along the wall, but I can’t stomach the thought of looking back to confirm. Instead, I focus my mind on the task I’ve come here to perform.

  Several officers stand at the doorway with masks over their mouths and noses. I don’t blame them. I cover my nose and mouth with my shirt and my hand, but it only helps so much. My heart wrenches and my eyes tear up before I reach the bedroom.

  Seth exits into the hallway just as I’m about to enter the bedroom and arm blocks me from proceeding. I look into his eyes; rage and sorrow radiate from them. Summer heat on asphalt.

  “She’s been dead about eight hours, and, with the excessive heat and no air conditioning, it’s pretty bad.” I give him the look, and he sighs. “Don’t just rush in there. It’s one of the worst scenes I’ve witnessed in a long time.”

  I nod with a half-smile and gently push his arm aside. He shakes his head at me, but he knows I have no choice. It’s my job. I move past Seth and enter the bedroom with my eyes trained on the cracked and peeling ceiling.

  Deborah, a forensics expert, gives me a nod. “We’ve swept the entire room and dusted every surface, but there’s so much contamination in here I’m not sure we’ll be able to get anything from it.” Her voice is muffled through her mask.

  I keep my eyes trained on Deborah, my mind still not ready to take in the scene. “Did you find anything I should know about? Anything significant?”

  Deborah shakes her head and lowers her eyes. “Nothing. This guy is a ghost.”

  I nod. “Thank you.”

  She pulls rubber gloves off her hands. “Charlie walked through the scene with Detective Ryan and gathered all the shots and video. If you see anything that we missed please mark it and then send Charlie back in to photograph and log it when you’re done.”