Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (3 page)

Before I reached the door, Munson called out to me. “Did you
notice
this hairbrush?” He held a bloody hairbrush inside a clear plastic evidence bag.

I shrugged.
“I
noticed
it in the sink,” I replied.
“What about it?”

He walked over to me and held it out for my inspection.
“
It l
ooks like it was ripped from her h
air
. Lots of broken
reddish-brown
hairs in it.
Too many for normal use.
”

I grimaced
at the implications
.
“Did our perp rip it out of her hair?

He shook his head. “No way of knowing
for certain but it appears that
her assailant
surprised her
as she was brushing her hair
.
O
nly
one set of
prints
, p
roba
bly hers.
”

“That could be why there’s no sign of a struggle. He was on her so quickly she couldn’t fight back.”
As I said it, something struck me as odd. “Wait. If she were brushing her hair, looking in the mirror, she would have seen him
behind her
. Why didn’t she fight
put up a fight
?” 

He smiled at me
and shrugged
. “I just examine the evidence. You’ll have to
make the assumptions.
You’re the one supposed to put himself in
your
suspects
’ minds.
”

I nodded.
I understood what he meant about assumptions
.
Assumptions could do more than make an ass of you
. They could kill.
Munson
would
n’t
call a
five-dollar
bill a five
-
spot
until he had spent it
and gotten change
. He worked strictly by the book. Maybe that was why I liked him. I trusted him.
I had worked with other coroners who
treated
their job
only
as a dead end profession
and
whose
biased and
often
erroneous
conclusions had ruined many court cases.
He was right about another thing. I had to think like our perp.
Putting myself in a predator’s head was what I did best. Usually it worked
.
However, th
is time I was lost. This
bastard
acted like no
criminal
I had ever encountered. He was
fast and efficient, bold and vicious and I wanted his ass bad
ly
.

On the way down the
stairs,
I
met
the
uniform
ed officer
who had examined the roof standing by the door
sipping
coffee
from
a
Styrofoam cup. I took a deep whiff of the coffee
and immediately wanted a caffeine fix but it had to wait
.
“Were you just on the roof
, Officer
?”

He looked at me
strangely.
“No sir. I’ve been here five minutes.”

I shrugged.
“
I guess I just s
aw
the
shadow
of a cloud pass
in front of the
moon
.
”
He looked at me quizzically.

“No clouds tonight,” Lew said.
“What did you see,
T
ack?”

I sh
o
ok my head. “Nothing. Let’s eat
. I need some coffee but none of this swill
the landlord brewed up
.” 

A
twenty-four hour diner on Fourth Avenue served a good breakfast special – two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast
and jelly
, hash browns and coffee for
six bucks.
Lew and I were regulars so the waitress called out our order to the cook as we walked through the door and brought two cups and a pot of hot coffee.
I liked that.
I enjoyed my coffee and hated to wait for a refill.

Lew and I
seldom
talk
ed
while we ate. It was an unwritten rule, a time to wind down.
There was p
lenty enough time
for conversation
in the car or in the office. Besides, we
did
n’t
want prying ears to overhear our random thoughts
concerning
a case. Reporters ate breakfast too
and there was already far too much speculation in the press
about this case
.
If we spoke at all, it was
generally about
mundane things
, like his
current
wom
a
n or my
cabin in the woods, which now belonged to my ex
-wife
.
T
his morning
, we
were silent by a mutual
ly
unspoken agreement
, each of us wrapped up in our private
musings
about the case.

I was stymied.
We had no witnesses, no fingerprints, no DNA except for the victims’ and so far, not even a body.
Our kidnapper
(O
r murderer
, I couldn’t help thinking)
had scaled walls unobserved and carried off his victims
. How could anyone do all that without making noise
?
No one had even reported a
strange
ve
hicle in the area.
What was he doing, giving them piggyback rides?

After
we finished
breakfast,
which I had eaten but not tasted,
I
leaned my head against the
booth bench and closed my eyes for a
few
second
s
.
As I did, my exhaustion washed over me.
Sleep had become a distant memory. I yearned to curl up and forget everything about the case for just a few hours, but I
knew I
cou
ldn’t. Somewhere out there
some crazy bastard
was kidnapping, maybe murdering young girls. I had to stop him. I opened my eyes
just
as Lew tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

“T
ake
my
car
,
go home
and
get some
sleep
,” I said
.
“
I
’ll grab
a taxi later.
I want to check out the roof again.
Something
about it
did
n’t
feel right
and I doubt the uniform
scoured it as thoroughly as he should have.
”

“I’m okay,” Lew objected.

I waved a hand. “Sure you are. Your eyes are as red as
a traffic light. Get some shut eye.”

“Yours are pretty blood-shot and those dark circles under your eyes
don’t make you any handsomer
,
”
Lew shot back.

I picked up my coffee cup and drained it. “I run on caffeine.
Go on. We can pick up your SUV from the office tomorrow.
My turn to pay
.
”
I plopped down a few bills to cover the check with a generous tip for
the waitress.

Lew
relented and
dropped me off at the crime scene. Forensi
c
s
had gone home
but
the ubiquitous yellow
crime tape
still
festooned the
sidewalk
. A single
bored
uniform
ed officer
guarded the
entrance
.

“What are you looking for, Tack?” Lew asked
as he leaned out the driver side window
.

“I don’t know.
I just want to look around some more. I can’t sleep anyway.
My mind’s churning.
”

“Need any help?”
he asked around the
hand trying to stifle a yawn.

“Go to bed. No reason for both of us to be cranky tomorrow morning.”

I watched Lew drive off and
then
approached the officer.
He tipped his hat as I walked up. “Morning, Detective,” he said a little too cheerfully for me
, considering my
foul
mood
. “
A l
ate night
or early morning
?”

I
walked by him w
ithout speaking
and
trudged
up the
five
flights to the roof.
As I climbed,
I wondered where the Academy was coming up with these kids.
He
looked about eighteen, hardly old enough to shave
, much less carry a gun
. He should be out trying to get in some cheerleader’s pants
in his parents’ garage
or
downing
beer
s
in the alley with his
friends
, not putting his life on the line everyday for
people who didn’t
give a shit
.

I was puffing by the time I
reached the last landing and
heaved myself out
onto the roof.
I coughed a few times to clear my lungs and breathe in some
cool night
air. It tasted of tar and smog.
I
had given
up cigarettes a year ago but my lungs were still full of crap.
I guess I needed more exercise, but just when I
might
manage time for the gym, I
did
n’t
know.
I located the spot
on the roof
above the
Stewart girl’s
apartment and walked around
, staying as far from the roof’s edge as I could
.
I
don’t like h
eights.
The
gibbous
moon
provided a little
illuminat
ion
, but I used my flashlight in the shadow
ed
corners
.
I found
no marks above the window or along the concrete ledge, no indication that our
guy
had used a rope
for climbing
.
There wasn’t anything to secure
a rope
to on this side of the building
anyway
.
The chimneys and aerials were on the opposite side of the roof.

As I stood there thinking, a light w
inked
out in an apartment across the street
, someone else
up late
.
My attention wandered to th
at
roof one story higher than the one on which I stood.
It was difficult to tell, but I thought I saw something
light
-
colored
on the
ledge
, flapping in the
thin
morning
breeze. I knew it was probably nothing,
a
loose
piece of paper or clothing left out to dry,
but I was short on leads for three
missing
bodies
and t
he
c
aptain was eating antacids like M&Ms and
coming
down on my
ass
like a drill sergeant.
Besides,
I had a gut feeling I should take a look.

Luckily, the building across the street had an elevator and I
had to
walk up
only
one flight
of stairs to the roof
.
The
locked
roof
door
slowed me down for only a minute as I picked it
with
the
lock
tool kit
I had liberated
from a petty thief
a few months earlier
.
It came in handy in instances like this. Out o
n the roof, a strange odor
immediately
caught my attention
but
it
disappeared as quickly as it
came.
I walked to the edge of the roof overlooking the
street
, leaning back from the dizzying height
until I got my vertigo under control
.
B
elow and across the street, t
he uniform was
nonchalantly
leaning against the
alley
wall smoking a cigarette
, leaving the front door of the building unguarded
.
I shook my head.