Authors: Casey Doran
But Howitzer's vision was never realized. A year into the renovation, the head contractor fell to his death down the elevator shaft while conducting a routine inspection of the pulley system. A month later, Howitzer himself was killed when a loose overhead light fell from the ceiling. The building acquired a reputation as being cursed. Despite its ideal downtown location and panoramic river views, no other developer would touch it. It sat empty, with only one of the eight floors completed, a monument to unfulfilled potential.
For me, it was perfect: No neighbors. No distractions. And a history nearly as dubious as my own. Flush from the money from my first major sale, I made an offer to the estate of the deceased owner, who were only too happy to get rid of it. The city took my money for utilities every month, but no plans were underway to finish the renovations. I was the lone resident on the one completed floor of a cursed building.
Currently, not so alone.
I reached the killing floor. To my right was the main entrance. The area beyond was cloaked in shadow. The controls for the lights were just to my left, and I turned them on. Rows of halogen lights illuminated the area. Someone had left me a message on the wall. The thick and runny texture of the letters left little doubt as to the medium. The blood had already begun to dry and turn to a dark brown against the concrete backdrop.
Murder is in the air!
Murder is in the air
is how I began all of the Christian Black novels. It was my signature. Now being used as a taunt by someone with a sick love for power tools. I moved forward. The stench washed over me as I approached the body. I pulled my T-shirt over my nose and mouth. Many times I had written about the decaying odor of death. As it came to me now, I realized that my best attempt at describing it did not begin to do it justice. Even Doomsday's eyes were watering.
The body was still bound to the chair. The head was across the room. Blood pooled under the chair and splattered the walls like a macabre Jackson Pollock painting. I saw the chainsaw resting cockeyed at the foot of the chair, discarded after being used for applications that would surely void the warranty.
It was mine. I recognized it immediately from the scratches on the side caused by tossing it in the back of my truck. Turning away from the body, I looked over to the footlocker where I keep my tools. I use the area for research. When describing the damage a sledgehammer does to a human skull, the best way to be as realistic as possible is to try it out. Granted, I've never actually used the real thing. But I've found that pig heads work pretty well. The lid to the footlocker was flipped open. I never kept it locked. A key is needed to open the door leading to Main Street, the large metal roll door requires a remote, and the building has no other tenants. People getting into my stuff isn't a concern I normally have. In any event, I doubted a ten-dollar padlock would have stopped them. I was more interested in how the killer knew that I owned it and where it was kept.
Beyond the body was a trail of bloody footprints that led toward the rear of the building and disappeared behind a blind corner. Beyond the corner was the rear entrance, a single door that led out to the alley behind the building. The message was clear:
Follow, if you have the nerve
. Doomsday moved first. He was probably pissed that somebody had dragged him out of bed and was looking to sink his teeth into the offender's leg. He is not your average dog. He growls at most people he meets, pisses on cars with a verve that seems calculated, and has no patience for mundane doggy standards such as shaking paw, rolling over, or playing fetch. When he isn't eating, shitting, or grumpy, he is asleep.
I trailed close behind, making sure to give the body and the surrounding pool of blood a wide berth. At the swinging rear door the footsteps disappeared, washed away in the rain that pounded the pavement. The sharp
thump
against the side of the building matched the beating of my heart.
Thump! Thump!
I stepped outside and got pelted by the storm, propping open the door with my foot while searching the shadows.
Somewhere, a killer waited. Possibly he was on the run, seeking refuge before the police arrived. Or maybe the footsteps were a trap. It was possible that the maniacal lumberjack was lying in wait somewhere in the shadows. The area was a killer's wet dream, offering dozens of dark corners that loaned themselves to an ambush.
Doomsday took a step forward with his head cocked like a trigger, ready to fire at the slightest hint of an intruder.
“What do you think?” I asked. I talk to him often, and he usually answers in his own way. He took a careful step forward. Not rushed, but not overly concerned either. If someone was nearby, I trusted the dog to know about it. He lowered his head and went back inside.
Noting out there to worry about.
The front entrance to my building faces a busy street. Several clubs and restaurants are all within walking distance. But the alley is deserted. It is an area formerly used for deliveries to the business that had not been in existence in decades. All the killer would have to do is pull into the alley, jimmy the lock, and come and go as he pleased. The deserted alley and the storm provided the perfect cover.
Keeping the gun up and ready, I looked around for the killer. A person covered in this much gore and viscera would surely have a difficult time hiding anywhere but a GWAR concert.
I resisted the urge to yell, “Is anyone there?” Cheesy horror movie lines had their limits. I shut the door, silencing the staccato of rain pounding off the building, and walked back to the other side of the garage. Again, I gave the body a wide berth. But this time I noticed that something else had been scrawled on the opposite wall.
It was the number 5.
I swore under my breath. In
Black as Night
Christian Black spent a month exterminating five individuals in gruesome and sadistic ways. At each crime scene, he left a number boldly painted in the blood from his kill.
Death imitating art. Blood and tissue were flung around like confetti. It hung from the ceiling in gruesome stalactites, oozing down with visceral fingers. It pooled on the floor and glistened in the overhead lights. The average person holds about six or seven pints of blood in their body. It seemed like my garage was covered in six or seven gallons.
No longer able to stand either the sight or the smell of the body, I exited the building and went outside, taking shelter from the storm under the covered alcove and sucking in deep breaths of fresh air. I unloaded the gun held it with the wheel cylinder open to show that it was empty. When the police arrived, they were going to be on alert enough without me making it look like I was holding a loaded weapon. With that done, I out my phone.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“This is Jericho Sands. There is a dead body in the Howitzer building,” I told the operator.
“Are you sure the person is dead, sir?”
“Well, I would check the neck for a pulse, but 'the head is disconnected from the rest of the fucking body.”
I hung up before the operator could ask anything else. Was I sure he was dead? Yeah, lady. Pretty damn sure. Within minutes, a pair of patrol cars raced up Main Street. Seconds later, four more cars arrived. Their lights and sirens cut through the night like an invading army. The officers parked diagonally, blocking off the street while they set up perimeters. Good moves. Practiced by professionals who were all too acquainted with responding 911 calls of a dead body. The city had seen a rising homicide rate over the past few years and the officers who took control of the scene looked like they thought they had seen it all.
They were in for a surprise.
Two of them finally came up to me and I pointed over my shoulder.
“Just past the stairwell.” I said. “You can't miss it.”
“Is anyone else in the building?” One of them asked. He looked over my shoulder towards the front door, his weapon just a whisper away from clearing leather.
“Just the dead guy.” I said.
“You're sure?”
“The dog was sure. That's good enough for me.”
He looked down at Doomsday and nodded. “Okay. Wait here. One of the other officers will need to talk to you.”
As soon as they were gone another officer walked up. He was built like a defensive end a decade past retirement. Probably a heavy weight lifter in his day, but all the mass had slid down to his gut. He would be useless in a foot chase. He pulled a small notebook and flipped to a clean page. His nameplate read Olsen. I had just begun answering questions when the first two officers stumbled from the building, walked past me and leaned against one of the squad cars. The one I talked to hunched over and began mumbling between dry heaves.
“Holy shit ⦠holy shit ⦠shit, shit, shit ⦔
“Jesus, Robby.” Olsen asked. “What the hell did you see in there?”
The only answer he received was the sound of his partner's digestive downpour splattering on pavement and mixing with the rain.
Within minutes my building was surrounded by what appeared to be every law enforcement vehicle in Peoria County. Many nightclubs in the area were still open. The chaos attracted drunken patrons who fought against the barricades for a good look at whatever the hell was happening. Cell phones were raised over the heads of cops in attempt to grab a lucky snapshot worthy of posting on Facebook.
I was taken to headquarters. No surprise. A body turns up in your garage with no head and no explanation for how it got there, you had better be prepared to answer some tough questions. I briefly considered calling a lawyer, but didn't spend very long mulling it over. I had done nothing wrong. I had the message on my cell phone to verify my story. And I hate lawyers.
The cop behind the wheel was a kid who looked like he hadn't yet grown into his uniform. He kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror and fidgeting in his seat. Clearly, he was not crazy about being ordered to bring the psycho downtown. Or maybe he just had to pee.
“What's your name?” I asked.
“Rourke.”
“You can relax, Rourke. I didn't kill that guy, so you can stop checking the mirror to make sure I'm not going to tear through the metal screen and bite your head off.”
Rourke glanced back at me, but did not make eye contact. His gaze went back to the road.
“You wanted to see it, didn't you?” I asked. “You wanted to see the body.”
“Maybe.”
“Trust me, Rourke. You are much better off for not having seen it. I wish I didn't see it. Hell, I may never stop seeing it.”
“Was it really that bad? I mean, is it as bad as the stuff you write about? I've read your books. You conjure up some pretty graphic stuff.”
“My books don't come close. My books are Disney compared to what is back there.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Rourke nodded, and we rode the remainder of the short drive in silence. He parked in the underground parking garage and led me up two floors in an elevator and through a hallway into the special investigations division. This time of night, it was completely deserted. I looked at the desks in the bullpen, observing what I could as I followed my escort. There were three pairs of desks. Six detectives, three teams. The area was experiencing heavy layoffs and hard economic times. People were out of work, and many had given up looking. But homicide detectives had job security. I wondered which team I would get. One of the desks was covered in Chicago Cubs fanfare. Another was just covered. It was a mountain of papers and files and boxes that looked on the brink of collapse. By contrast, the one beside it was so clean that I wondered if it belonged to anyone. Stacks of files were set to the left in perfect alignment. Everything, from the desk calendar to the keyboard to a penholder, was at right angles. A full pump bottle of hand sanitizer was beside the phone.
Rourke took a call on his cell phone, turning his back and speaking in hushed tones. I still was not cuffed. Had I been dangerous, I could have attacked Rourke from behind, taken his weapon and had free reign of the floor. In my mind's eye, I pictured Christian Black doing it. I casually glanced around the room, playing out the struggle. After a minute, Rourke ended his conversation with a crisp “Yes, sir,” snapped his phone shut, and turned back to me.
“The detectives are still at your building. If you want to wait in one of the interview rooms, one of them should be here in a few minutes. I also need to take your phone.”
“My phone?”
“Yeah. We need to have the tech guys look at that message. They may be able to get something useful.”
“Sure.” I said and handed it over. The screen had shown âUnknown Caller”, but there was really no such thing. Someone with the right know-how and enough patience could trace just about anything. Unfortunately, the kind of people who were good enough to do that sort of thing usually worked the other side of the law. It paid better. But I knew that was not the real reason he was asking for my phone. Cops did not allow people into an interrogation room with a form of communication. Rourke smiled as he took the phone, seemingly grateful that I wasn't going to make an issue out of it. Some people would sooner hand over their kidney than their phone.