Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (5 page)

“Thanks Doc.”
I smiled to let him know I was sorry for going off on him
as
I had.

I threw out my arms and yawned so hard my jaw
popped
.
I was ready for some sleep. The morning sun made me feel like a vampire. My eyes burned and my skin crawled
as if an army of cooties was using it for a parade ground
. First, a
long, hot
shower; then, sleep.

“Come on, Lew. Give me lift home.”

Lew
was still driving
my car. He
dropped me off at my apartment
and
then took
the subway
to
the precinct to
catch up on
paper
work. It had been so long since I had been home,
my apartment
looked strange
as I opened the door
. I was not the best
housekeeper
in the world, but after the neatness of
Patricia Stewart’s
apartment, other than the
blood-splattered
bathroom, mine looked like a
pigsty
. I vowed to do some house cleaning but suspected I would
n’t
.
I liked to keep my thoughts neatly compartmentalized, but everything else, like clothes, stayed where they landed and dishes where I used them.

I
loaded the
percolator
with coffee grounds
and headed for the bedroom. I dropped my clothes on the floor
as I w
alked down the hall
and stepped into the shower. The hot water felt great on the knot in my back but I knew the hot water
supply
would not last long
this early in the morning
when the whole city was
showering and head
ing
off to work
. I soaped up and quickly rinsed just as the water turned tepid. I
glanced in the
steamy
mirror
to see if I needed
to shave
and realized what Patricia Stewart had felt
.
Her assailant’s reflection had been no more than a blur
, if she had seen him at all.

I
shaved and
finished the same time the percolator did
, gurgling and hissing its readiness
.
I wrapped a towel around my waist and
walked
still
dripping
into
the kitchen
, savoring the
heady
aroma of
fresh brewed
coffee
that filled the room
. Even as a kid before I had taken my first sip, the aroma of coffee had intrigued me
, watching my dad holding his giant mug with both hands, blowing across the lip
of the mug
to cool it
’s steaming contents
.
Nothing spoke of mornings and a fresh start like a cup of coffee. I grabbed a clean cup and the pot and walked into the living room.

I
sat
back
on the sofa and quickly
downed one cup and started on a second. Coffee did
n’t
keep me awake
but I enjoyed
the taste, the stronger the better
. I stifled a yawn and
set the cup down unfinished. My bed
was calling my name
. I
did
n’t
bother putting on anything. I just dropped the towel and climbed in
to
bed
nude
and damp
. The sheets were far from fresh but still
felt cool and comforting
against my naked body.

I didn
’
t sleep well.
My dreams were
about Patricia Stewart.
She stood on a rooftop,
a ghost
moon
illuminating her from
behind
.
A dark shadow surrounded her like a reverse aura, draining the color from her pale cheeks.
Blood
covered
her
hair and
ran dripping
down her face.
Her lips moved as if she was trying to tell me something
, warn me
.
H
orror filled her pleading
blue
eyes
as she stared into mine
, not
simply
fear,
but
deep soul-crushing
horror
, as if her attacker
had stripped away all her beliefs, her faith in God and
humankind.
Red stained the
white
of
her
eyes
, and as I watched,
slowly
painted them crimson.
The shadow grew darker, larger, looming until all light was
gone
.
With a final silent scream, she disappeared, leaving only darkness but even the darkness held horrors.

I awoke sweating, my heart racing as if I had just run a marathon.
Why this case
,
out of the hundreds I had investigated
over the years
bothered me
,
I did
n’t
know. It just did.

Further sleep eluded me.
W
ea
rily
I dressed,
grabbed a
quick
snack
of toast and j
am
and headed for the precinct
,
munching on
my meager breakfast
on the way
,
ignor
ing
the
looks of other
bleary-eyed
drivers as I
snaked savagely
in and out of traffic
,
transferring my anger and frustration to other cars
. The city seemed
different,
unnaturally subdued, as if waiting for something
to happen
. Pedestrians walked with heads
bowed
, cowering
, afraid to look at one another
. I honked my horn
at a
tranced out jaywalker
who
had
almost stepped in front of me.
He glanced
up, scowled at me
and continued walking. I resisted the impulse to shoot him the bird.

When I arrived
at the precinct
,
Lew was already deep into the paperwork, something I gladly left to him
since
I typed like a
one-armed,
dyslexic chimpanzee
, while he was a computer
whiz
.
The mood of the squad room was
as
subdued
as
that of
the city
,
somber,
with
none of the
light-hearted
banter
that
usually
filled the room
. Even the telephones seemed to ring
more
quietly.

“Mornin’, Lew,” I called out as I removed my jacket and draped it over my desk chair. I
plopped down,
loosened my tie and leaned back
, my
ancient
wooden chair creaking ominously
.
My voice sounded loud
, strangely out of place
in the quiet room.

Lew finished whatever he was doing and looked over at me across his
impeccably
neat desk
. Mine
looked like an upturned garbage can.
I tended to keep everything out where I could
lay
my hands on it quickly, a somewhat bizarre but, in my case, effective filing system.
Lew, on the other hand, kept all his files
neatly stowed
in drawers
or his computer
, leaving his desk for a workspace
. Only a picture of his mother,
a
phone and
a
pen set marred its polished surface. M
ine
had dust from the last war. I thought the cleaning staff purposely avoided it for fear of catching some
horrible communicable disease
.

“Good morning, Tack. Get
any
sleep?”

I mocked a yawn and smiled. “Like a kid with the colic. Find out anything?”

He nodded slowly
, his face grim
. I knew what was coming. “The blood on the street and on the cloth belonged to the Stewart girl.”

I
had
expected that.
So why did the news churn my stomach?
“Anything on the marks
on the concrete
or the
odd
scales?”

“Nothing on the
marks
, though the Doc said they weren’t made
by
steel, wood or anything he had seen before. The scales
…
well,
Munson
looked at me odd about them
, s
aid he needed to do some reading
before he speculated further
.”

Lew stared off into space
as if mulling over Munson’s words.

“The ammonia,” I prompted
, rolling my finger to keep him speaking
.

Lew leaned back in his chair and drummed his pen on the desk, a habit he performed when excited and confused. “That was
the
really weird
part
. He found a small puddle of
dried
ammonia on the roof. He said it was organic
waste
, whatever that means, and he seemed very excited about it.”

Organic waste
.
I had no clue what that might mean. “Ex
c
ited, huh? Maybe we got a break.
We could certainly use one.
”

“If we did he’s not talking about it.”

I nodded. Munson always played it close to his
chest
. Getting information out of him was
like collecting on a
bet
from
a deadbeat brother-in-law
, but when
Munson
finished
a
report, you could count on it being accurate. I opened the folder
lying on top of a pile of scattered papers
on my desk. It
s two thin pages
and a few photos of the crime scene
contained
the total sum of what
we knew about the Stewart
girl’s disappearance
so far
.
The two folders beneath
it
of
the previous cases
were just as woefully thin.
I
glanced over
at the white
marker
board
resting
on it
s
easel
against
the wall.
On it were t
hree photos –
Nadia Travers, Elise
Dewhurst and Patricia Stewart –
three photos of what they looked like when they
had
lived happy carefree lives. All
the others were
photos of a bloody bathroom, a bloody bedroom, and in the first case, a bloody fourth floor balcony.
Under
the heading ‘C
onnections
’
,
I had written
‘young females between the ages of 18 and 22
’
. Under
‘S
uspects
’
,
I drew a big zero
. I read the addresses.

“The only connection I can see,
” I said, “
other than
our perp
, is that they all lived within a five block radius
of each other
.”

Lew held out a sheet of paper. “I checked with Sex Crimes Division. They have
only one
registered sex offender within two miles of the area and he prefers little boys. I doubt he’s ou
r
man.
Besides, his alibi checks out. He works the late shift
as a security guard
at the hospital
.
”