{ PART 1 }
[INCLUDES SEXUAL VIOLENCE]
“Why the hell would someone do something like that?” Kaley asked.
“It’s our job to find out,” Elliot replied.
“And I’m having kind of a problem with that,” she replied.
“Well, it has to be someone sick,” Elliot said taking a sip of his coffee. “It has to be some sort of a psycho.”
“Maybe it’s a ghost of Ewan Loringer,” I chuckled.
“Don’t say stuff like that,” Kaley replied with a small smile.
Ewan Loringer was a well-known individual in the town where we operated. He died 38 years ago after being shot by the police. He killed his wife, his son, and all three of his daughters. His case resembled the case of Summer Brown a lot. Ewan tore out his family member’s eyeballs, flayed their right arms completely, and carved the circle symbol into their chest. Apparently, he wanted to continue doing it to other people, but he was stopped by the police in time. He was found rambling about prophecies and the doom of mankind. He was imprisoned and died in a prison riot 2 months later. The police ruled it out as a case of simple insanity. I’d believe that too, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.
“You might not be completely off,” Elliot said. “I mean, it’s not a ghost, but it could be connected to Ewan Loringer.”
“How?” Kaley asked.
“It could be a copycat. They are doing the same things as Ewan but enough difference to distinguish themselves from him. Maybe they wanted to show that there are even worse people than Ewan. That THEY are worse than Ewan.”
“I don’t know. I mean it could be possible but copycats are not such a common thing. Maybe there’s something more to it,” I replied.
“There’s too little information for now, but Johnatan is questioning Summer’s family,” Kaley said. “Maybe he’ll find something out and we’ll get closer.”
“Or the only thing her family will tell him is that everyone loved her and she had many friends. That she was a lovely girl no one could hate,” Elliot said before sighing and standing up. “I have other cases to deal with. I need to get to work.”
When Elliot left the room, Kaley looked at me.
“Do you think that we’ll find her killer?”
“We will, Kaley. Why do you worry so much?”
“I knew the girl’s sister. We were best friends in primary school. We haven’t talked in a few years and I’ve been thinking about reaching out to her last week.”
“You can still do it.”
“But I think that it would be weird.”
“There’s nothing like the comfort of old friends to help you go through stuff like that. You should call her.”
“She’ll recognize Johnatan and probably ask about me, right?”
“If you were best friends as you say, she will for sure.”
Our conversation lasted a bit longer before both of us went back to work. My shift was just about to end, we got a call. A new body was found. The person who called claimed that it was beyond recognition. They were barely speaking out of terror from what they came across. They didn’t want to describe it and didn’t even want to stay near it when we asked them to. The body was discovered near a very popular trail for short walks so we needed to act fast.
The police arrived and closed the trail off before us detectives came. Once again, the body was leaning on a tree. The eyes were missing, the lower jaw was jammed into the stomach of the victim. Ribs, lungs and the heart were missing and the surrounding flesh was lacerated by whatever they used to open up the victim’s chest. There were cut all over the victim’s bald head. There wasn’t as much blood as was the case with Summer. That made it obvious that his right arm was flayed from the elbow down. The circle sign was carved into the top of the victim’s right arm. We didn’t immediately see the genital area of the victim because they were overweight, but judging by the fact that the lower jaw was covered in bloody beard and the mustache fell down along the tongue.
I put on some gloves and while Kaley, Johnatan, Elliot, Tara, and captain Holden were watching, I lifted the victim’s belly which obscured the genital area. The victim’s penis and testicles were cut off and the blood from the wound still somehow poured onto the forest floor and down the victim’s legs. Just like in Summer’s case, there was a bit of tissue carved out with the genitals. It looked like someone didn’t know how to cut it properly so they took out a chunk of flesh with it. Elliot started puking again, and Tara, a detective I didn’t mention previously helped calm him down.
“This is vile,” Kaley said squinting.
“Still no insects,” I emphasized.
“How is the blood still pouring?” Johnatan asked.
“They probably rubbed some sort of anticoagulant on the wound,” I answered.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“It stops the blood from coagulating, detective,” captain took a disappointed look at Johnatan. “It means that they stopped the blood from getting harder and make it flow longer.”
“The forensics should find out what it is,” I said standing up and letting the victim’s stomach fall over his legs.
“Whoever’s doing this, they are doing it fast,” the captain commented. “We should have more people patrolling the streets and tell people to be more careful,” he took a look at Johnatan. “You’ll be the one to talk to the reporters. Tell them that there’s a bear going around.”
Bears weren’t too uncommon in the forests around the town. It also wasn’t unheard of that a bear went into the town and spent some time in small forested areas throughout the town. They usually don’t attack people, but then again, they are wild animals. They are unpredictable and could feel threatened by you. I’ve also heard of predators tasting a piece of human flesh and loving it so it would be a decent coverup.
“I believe that should be good enough for now,” I said.
“For now?” Johnatan asked.
“Why would you kill two random people? There might be a correlation but I doubt it. These two people could have possibly never even seen each other.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Johnatan was frustrated.
“More will be killed. I’m sure of it. There will either be a pattern or the person who’s doing this just finds these people when they are at their most vulnerable.”
Captain took another look at the body, turned around, and walked away. When Johnatan noticed it, he ran after the captain like a child. He caught up with the captain and told him something. Captain looked a bit surprised but continued walking away.
“I’m afraid for my parents,” Kaley told me. “They started going on evening walks about a month ago.”
It was late spring so evening walks were as perfect as they could be. If only our town was close to the sea. The only thing better than an evening walk through a calm forest is a walk down the beach.
“You should tell them not to go. Tell them that it’s for their own safety.”
“My mom won’t listen to me. She only listens to Johnatan. Maybe dad will be able to convince her…”
“She’ll listen to you,” I told her. “I’m sure of it.”
“I hope so.”
She took a step backward, smiled, turned around, and left. I felt like she liked me and I didn’t really know how to act on it. I was never the popular extroverted guy who had 20 girlfriends by the age of 16. I was in a relationship two times before, but they lasted about two months because I ‘put my job in front of them even though that was a thing I had to do as a law enforcer. Saving lives is kind of more important than driving you to the mall, Tiffany.
“Was the other one this bad?” Tara asked me.
I took a look at her. She was a short brunette with brown eyes. She put her fingers on her nose and pinched it so that she wouldn’t smell the blood from the corpse.
“You haven’t seen it?”
“Only pictures. Captain told me to stay in the office since I had a lot of cases to finish.”
“You would have found it worse.”
“Why?”
“You’re a woman. We sympathize with people who have more similarities to us. But overall, both are equally as bad,” I chuckled. “Elliot threw up after seeing both.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You have any suggestion who could have done this?”
“Must be a copycat. I can’t think of anything else. Although I do believe there could be more to it. Well… more copycats.”
“You mean… multiple people trying to be new Ewan?”
“I don’t believe a single person would kill someone early in the morning one day and then another person in the middle of the next day. It’s not like these people function. It kinda works like hunger. You kill someone, you’re full for a week. Then you become hungry again.”
I didn’t reply. I just turned my look away from her and towards the body. Could it be that there were two or more killers? I don’t remember ever hearing about two psychopaths working together, but it seemed like a somewhat plausible idea. While we were standing there, two policemen ran up to us and covered the body with a blanket.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tara asked them.
“Captain ordered us to cover the body. Civilians are starting to gather around,” one of the policemen answered.
They went back to their jobs and Tara and I went back to ours. This case just became much more interesting and I didn’t have anything to do at home anyway. I searched for some more clues around the area hoping to find anything from footprints to lost items or even drops of blood. If they killed the guy here, maybe he put up a fight and they missed a spot after cleaning no matter how unlikely that sounds. I looked like a child looking for bugs on the forest floor. But again, there were none. Both bugs and any evidence. I gave up after not being able to find anything. It was a bit too weird if you ask me. I talked to the captain and we agreed that he’ll send people to search through the woods. He also sent policemen to question people who could have seen something. After our conversation, I went to my car and was about to leave when I heard someone call after me. I turned around and saw Elliot walking up to me.
“What is it?” I asked softly.
“Do you have a moment?”
“Sure,” I answered.
“You know what would be better? Come to my place for a bit. For coffee,” he stopped for a second. “You are the only one I can trust.”
This hit me like a sucker punch. Elliot was never like this. He usually stayed very quiet about stuff outside work and no one even knew where he lived. Not only that, but that last sentence made me think that he knew something about the murders.
“We’ll talk when we get there,” he told me before leaving to his car. “Just follow me.”
After about 15 minutes, we were at his place. It was a nice little place, perfect for him. There was a front garden while the backside of the house was turned towards the woods. It was in a quiet neighborhood and the people were quite nice. We went inside and he immediately went to the kitchen which was left from the front door.
“Sit,” he said pulling a chair from underneath the table in the middle of the kitchen. “I didn’t really clean but I also didn’t expect anyone to visit me today,” he said scratching the back of his head.
“I don’t really see a problem with that,” I smiled. “My house is always dirty.”
He chuckled and turned on a coffee machine.
“How do you take it?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry. I’m not up for coffee,” I answered.
“A beer, then?”
“Sure.”
He turned the coffee machine off and opened a fridge. He took out two beers and opened them up.
“Cheers,” both of us said while clinking our glasses.
After taking a sip, we both sighed and looked each other in the eyes. I realized he still contemplated whether he wanted to tell me what he found out. I could see it in his eyes.
“You can tell me,” I told him. “I assure you with everything I have, you can trust me.”
“Okay,” he exhaled. “You remember that guy I arrested recently? The one with coke?”
“Uh-huh.”
“We confiscated the coke and put it in the station.”
“Some’s missing?” I quickly jumped to the conclusion.
He nodded.
“So, you think one of us took it?”
“I know that it wasn’t you or Kaley, but I’m not too sure about everyone else.”
“What if it was the cops?”
We don’t share the same building with the cops. It’s kind of stupid because there was no more space in the police station so they bought a place a few houses away. All the confiscated stuff was kept in our building since, once again, there was no space in the police station. The station would call us when we needed to return the confiscated stuff and they’d send someone to pick it up. By the time they got there, we’d already had everything prepared and waiting for them. After a short time, some people got bored of it and just gave the keys to the cops so they had full access to it. This meant that the range of suspects for this was much bigger than just the detectives.
“It could very well be,” Elliot answered. “The problem is that there more than just a few people went into the room last Thursday. I put the coke there on Wednesday and wasn’t in the room until Friday.”
“And immediately you rule out me and Kaley because you are a good friend,” I said and grinned.
“No. I saw that neither of you went into the room after I put the coke there.”
“I know. I was being sarcastic,” I took another sip of the beer.
“So, we either have a druggy or a corrupted cop… or detective. Do you think that I should bring it up to the captain?”
“I honestly don’t know. It would definitely be the right thing to do but you know the captain. He’ll immediately start trying to solve it even though we have a possible serial killer running around. Either tell someone else everything you’ve told me. You have to decide it on your own.”
He took a sip from his beer and looked away from me.
“Sorry if I wasn’t of help,” I told him. “I’m just too focused on the murders.”
I was half lying. The murders were only a part of what I was thinking about. The dream. The scar on my arm. The similarity between the circle of the flayed arms and eyes and the sun-like part of the scar. I could only imagine what the thing in the middle was. I remembered its eyes from the dream. Its eyes were full of craving for human flesh and suffering.
“Just listening was helping,” Elliot replied. “I’ll probably tell Kaley.”
“If you want to, but I wouldn’t advise it. I already talked to her and she has some bad stuff on her mind at the moment. I don’t think one more would make it any better.”
“Huh,” Elliot took a sip of his beer.
We were silent for a minute and I decided that it was time for me to go home. I finished the little bit of beer that was left and stood up.
“I have to get going,” I smiled. “I have a cat to feed.”
“Be careful,” Elliot told me. “We all need to. This threat… this person we are dealing with is clearly insanely dangerous.”
When I got back to my house, an envelope was waiting for me in my mailbox. I took it out and it didn’t really look like anything special. I didn’t take a look at who the sender was. I just assumed it was bills or something like that. As soon as I opened the door, Micky ran up to me and meowed.
“Hey, little boy,” I said crouching and scratching him behind the ear. “You hungry?”
I put cat food in his bowl and sat down by the kitchen table. I put my hands on my eyes and sighed. I couldn’t tell anyone about the dream. Everyone would just say that I’m insane or that my jokes are sick. I was alone in this. Completely alone. I decided to take a glass of whiskey to calm down a bit. It always helped. I chugged the first glass and poured myself another. As I held it spinning in front of my lips, I chuckled. I just couldn’t react in any other way. When you hear that something like this happened to someone else, it doesn’t sound too bad. It doesn’t sound as traumatizing as it is, especially after hearing about what happened to Summer and that man. I jugged the other glass of whiskey and as I hit the table with it, I looked at the envelope.
“Ah, to hell,” I told myself and took the envelope.
When I opened it, I realized that it was a letter and some pictures. The letter read: “Hello, friend. Are we friends? Of course, we are. Friends help each other. How about you do what I ask you and I don’t send these pictures and some… particular evidence to the police.” After reading that sentence, I stopped and took a glimpse at the photos. They were turned upside down and I decided to finish the letter since it only had two or three more sentences. “I know what you did. Some other people do as well, and you’d be smart to help me. Wait for a task, FRIEND.”
I put the letter down and looked at the pictures. I already suspected what they were and slowly reached for them. There were three of them. I flipped them and took a look. The first one was a picture of a diner taken from a street. You can see me through the glass. The second one is me walking down the street in a completely different part of the town. And the last one was me sitting on a bench next in front of a lake. The catch was that I was not alone in those pictures. I was with Clara Sullivan.