Sleepwalker
By Keith Latch
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2010 by Keith Latch
Sleepwalker is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Broken Mind Publications
ISBN
October 2010
Cover Art © Broken Mind Productions
Broken Mind Publications is a registered trademark of Broken Mind Productions and the colophon is a trademark of Broken Mind Productions
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Latch, Keith (Robert Keith), 1979-
Sleepwalker / Keith Latch.
p.cm.
First eEdition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Maryn and Miranda, Better than I will ever deserve
Acknowledgements
Ever heard the expression, it takes a village to raise a child? Well, to a lesser extent, the same is true for a novel, or in this case a novella. Sleepwalker has existed, in one form or another, for several years. Like most works-in-progress of mine, it has been through many incarnations. I’ve had a collaborator on one occasion, and countless first readers. As for helping promote the work before its release, I owe the horror and writing podcasting community so very much. There’s little point in trying to put it into words for risk of making this a four hundred-page novel instead of a one-hundred fifty-page novella. While I would have loved to see this novella grow into a novel, the story held herein was a brisk, thrilling ride and I feel this short format fit it best. I only pray that I did the tale justice.
I would like to thank in no particular order, the people that lent a helping hand when I needed it most. Be forewarned, my memory isn’t as good as it once was and if I forget a name or two, it is completely unintentional. Desmond Reddick, Mike Benedict, Stephen Thompson, Vaughn,
Evo Terra, Jonny and Emma, Root Rot, Corey Graham, Darryl Pierce, Johnny Sanders, Eric
Stoner, my daughter for never doubting “my daddy’s books”, my wife for telling me I could even when I was convinced I couldn’t, my mother for giving the love of the written word, my father for betrothing me the audacity for not ever thinking my dreams wouldn’t become a reality, and finally God, for the obsession to tell the tale.
Chapter One
Monica Gypsum stepped quickly.
Her designer shoes slapped hard against the sidewalk as she pulled her jacket closer to her. A cutting wind blew from the north.
She worked her hands into fists, relaxed them, and clenched them again.
The sounds of Beale Street died out behind her, fading with each yard she put between herself and the street that was the site of the Mid-south’s biggest on-going party.
Biting into her lip, Monica felt the first trickle of blood slide into her mouth. The coppery warmth wasn’t tasty one little bit and it was that sick flavor, rather than the pain, that caused her to loosen her bite.
The November wind needled through the fabric of her dress, stinging her flesh like thousands of miniscule needles. The icy north wind wasn’t the cause of her discomfort, at least not entirely.
Inside, her anger simmered. The more she thought about the smart-ass smirk on Drew’s face, the higher it began to climb. Soon, it was boiling. Everything was blocked out except the memory of his cocky statement.
“Come on, Mon. What’s the problem? We’re not married or anything.”
That bastard!
To think she was considering asking him to move in with her. He was about to lose the lease on his apartment and she had plenty of room for both him and his belongings.
But no.
Drew thought with his head, the wrong head, and couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself.
She had indications sooner. Lipstick on the collar, smudged but still noticeable. The faint, almost indiscernible—but not quite—fragrance of another woman’s perfume. Still, she had been blind. Blind up until the last moment.
He didn’t even have the good sense God gave a rock to deny it.
That had to be the worst.
Trash blew across the sidewalk in front of her. Newspaper and scraps of litter. A large section of newspaper blew onto her face and stuck there.
Startled, Monica almost stumbled before she regained her balance and pulled the thin, inked paper away.
Staring back at her from the newsprint was a face as beautiful as it was innocent. Dark and exotic.
Even with only the dim light of the sodium vapors to read by, Monica could make out the headline: SECOND VICTIM DISCOVERED IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS.
Monica tossed the paper away as if it were a slimy thing.
Okay, maybe she should have taken a cab from Beale instead of storming off. She paused and looked around.
Windows of closed businesses were dark and there was no other pedestrian in sight.
Suddenly Monica really wished she had had the presence of mind to hail a taxi before heading into this dead section of the city. Memphis, despite its highly regarded musical reputation, was not a city known for safety on its streets. If the majority of Memphians could be believed, the police were just as crooked as the crooks themselves…if not more so.
She increased her already frantic walk, hoping to make it up another few blocks, into a more populated section of the riverside. You had to live in a vacuum not to have heard about the recent killings.
The first made the front page of the Commercial Appeal. Murders were serious business but in Memphis, they had to be downright sensational to make the first page. This had been exactly that.
The victim, a twenty-four-year old female University of Memphis student had been found suspended from a fountain in Overton Park. She was naked, her body covered in bruises and nasty lacerations. Beautiful honey-colored hair draped over a face that had been seemingly chewed by some type of prehistoric carnivore, her eyeballs missing.
Her name was Keri Kimbrough. The picture that ran showed a beautiful co-ed. There was no photo of the finished product.
The crime had made the people of the city draw a collective breath. Not an easy task.
It was covered on the local network affiliate stations as well. A grounds man discovered her after arriving to work at five in the morning on November 16, a Friday.
The second victim was discovered in a similar fashion by a dockworker, hanging by her ankles inches above the river. Telia Jackson, an attractive black girl that sang in one of the blues clubs on Beale.
That had been the face frozen in time on the front page of the paper that struck Monica.
It brought thoughts that didn’t belong in her head as she walked the darkened street.
Monica pulled her jacket tighter. The cold wind increased in its veracity. Up ahead, light, and lots of it. Perhaps an all night diner. She could order coffee and sit there until the sun came up if she so wished.
Right now, that sounded pretty darn good.
The figure came from her left. Knocking into her. She let loose an involuntary shriek. A heavy body, that of a man. Her left leg gave way, her ankle twisting painfully, its snap reverberating through her bones.
It was the killer.
She knew it instinctively. An image of her strung from the nearest streetlamp, naked and
Bleeding, her face beyond all recognition, stabbed into her brain. Not an appealing picture.
“Uh, sorry.”
As soon as he spoke, she smelled the liquor. Cheap, strong, stinking. Under the stench of inebriation was the foulness of unwashed clothing, of dirty flesh. A drunk.
He didn’t wait for an answer and his apology seemed to be all he was inclined to offer. He listed away across the street onto the opposite sidewalk and vanished into shadows.
Monica, now alone once more. The pain in her ankle was not forgotten. Walking was bearable, but only just. A wooden bench was within reach, set parallel to the street. Sitting was the last thing she wanted to do, but she hoped that if she took her full weight off the leg for just a minute, the flare would diminish.
Hopping like some silly handicapped rabbit, Monica made her way to the front of the bench and copped a seat. Ill-kept trees, sporadically, lined the street. Uptown the trees would be well cared for and lit by small landscape bulbs, but not here. Here the trees grew wild and craggy, resembling more a skeletal hand than anything grown organic from the earth. The crisp dead leaves, brown and far from life, were the scraps of clothing on their cadavers.
This was a bad spot. She knew that. Monica was not one given to jumping at her own shadow. She didn’t give into silly superstitions and knew that there was nothing more to fear in the dark than in the light.
Monica glanced at her watch. A mother of pearl faced Rolex, a gift. She couldn’t possibly afford such a timepiece on her salary. It was a gift from a former lover. The gift had lasted much longer than the relationship and that was fine with her. She favored the watch over him anyway.
The illuminated dials showed 2:30 am.
Middle of the night.
She wanted more than anything to blame Drew. She needed this to be his fault. In truth, it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely. She went to meet him knowing fully that things weren’t going to end well. Monica had the picture of Drew and that redheaded slut from the deli down from his apartment. It was all the proof she needed.
Suddenly, however, Drew’s company wasn’t very offensive. Suddenly, too, calling for a taxi didn’t sound like a bad idea.
She pulled her phone from her purse and tapped in 4-1-1. Another gift, this one from Drew.
He better not be looking to get it back.
As the phone started to ring, Monica’s sixth sense, one she never before knew she had, started to blare inside her skull.
She looked up just as the figure spoke. “Excuse me, ma’am. You have the time?”
Before Monica could speak, she was knocked clean off the bench. The iPhone skidded across the street, the asphalt scratching its pristine screen. Four hundred bucks down the drain in an instant. As her mouth crashed against the concrete curb, ten thousand dollars in dental surgery was just as wrecked. Enamel splintered and the perfect veneers across her front teeth shattered.
Tears poured from both pain and fear.
Before she could push herself up on friction-burned palms and smarting knees, she was grabbed from behind. Her attacker grabbed her by either arm and plucked her from the ground like a ragdoll. She screamed one single time, but it died short. Her head rammed into a thin, spindly tree, knocking her silent, but still conscious. Her will faltered and she struggled no more.
Dimness became blackness. She was only slightly aware as she was carried from the sidewalk down into an alley that stank of tuna fish and garbage.
She made movements with her mouth but for the life of her, quite literally, she couldn’t force sounds from her lungs. Monica moved her neck, this way and that, trying to catch a glimpse of her attacker, of this monster that tore her from her normal life and plunged her into a waking nightmare. She couldn’t. He was swathed in shadow, no, that was not quite right. It was if he were made of shadow. Of darkness and mist, and of nothing of substance.
Monica could feel the woolen fabric of the overcoat against her. Through her own coat, she couldn’t tell it from living flesh.
“End of the line,” the monster said. Even the voice itself was strange. A voice hollow and empty, haunting and terrible.
With that statement, Monica was pitched down—hard. She rolled over and over across the damp macadam. She came to a crashing stop against a metal Dumpster.
Could this be any worse?
Sure, she would die. Any thoughts to the contrary snuffed out as soon as her face made impact with the hard ground. This fella was not joking around. He was playing and playing for keeps.
A heavy foot rammed down into her stomach. What little air remained in her lungs flew out as the heel buried itself deep.
“Please, please stop.” Begging wasn’t even the word for it. Pleading couldn’t come close.
Her need for this to stop was on a level she had never reached before.
It did not stop. Not for a long time. When it was finally over and nothing remained of her but a shell, a husk mangled and ripped by human hands, no one would even notice she was gone until her body was discovered.
Not even Drew.
Chapter Two
Tim’s alarm clock blasted to life at ten minutes after six.
At fifteen after, he finally rolled over and switched it off. The silence of the bedroom settled over him and he reached out to his left. Stephanie’s side of the bed was empty. Even the residual body heat the sheets had absorbed through the night had cooled.
Most likely, she had been gone for hours. All drive and determination that was his wife. On the average, she was in her office before five, six out of seven days before the sun graced the horizon. Rarely did there come a day that she made it home before seven.
Tim reasoned it paid off well for her. Stephanie Seale was the most prominent pediatrician in
Memphis, if not the entire state. Besides the seven-figure salary, she had acquired a status among the in-crowd, one that he, being the editor of the leisure section of the Commercial Appeal, just couldn’t reach.
He had not slept well last night. Lately, sleep, though easy to find, did not offer the recuperative properties it once had. No matter how many hours he laid in bed, eyes closed, drifting around in R.E.M., he never felt rested, never felt refreshed.
It was beginning to show.
He did not want to get ready for work. In fact, he cared very little about moving a muscle.
Still, his job paid the bills quite nicely. His own paycheck, though nowhere near the size of his wife’s, was nothing to sneeze at. He enjoyed his work at least eighty-percent of the time.
He willed himself up and out of bed. The comfortable bedding and linen called him back. He was strong.
Tim padded across the room and into the master bath. Turning on the faucet, he squeezed a generous amount of Crest onto his toothbrush. As he was moving the brush to his mouth, he noticed something that stopped him short.
A stain on the knuckles of his right hand.
Studying the dried smear, it looked like ketchup or jelly.
At the moment he couldn’t recall what he had eaten for dinner—another consequence of poor sleeping habits—but he was reasonably certain that there had been no jelly or ketchup involved.
Using the thumbnail of his other hand, he scratched at the splotch. It flaked off.
Blood.
Studying his face in the mirror over the sink, Tim looked to see if he had suffered a nosebleed through the night. He saw nothing to indicate one. No cuts to his face or up and down his arms.
Strange.
By the time he finished brushing his teeth and stepped into the ornate shower stall, he had forgotten all about the blood on his hand.
He dressed quickly, donning a navy blue suit and red silk tie over a starched white oxford.
His loafers, deep dark leather, were shined to a T and he slipped them on over a comfortable pair of argyles.
Now that he was dressed and ready he walked out of the bedroom and knocked on the door of his daughters’ room. Kacy and Lacy, twin five-year-olds, was the picture of well-behaved, polite, and affectionate children. Tim truly could not have asked for better children.
A bang on the door and quick yell, “Wakey, wakey time,” and Tim was stomping down the stairs and into the kitchen. In the Mr. Coffee, a half carafe of java was left from Stephanie’s departure and he quickly started popping pastries into the toaster oven. Tim often felt guilty about not preparing a better breakfast for the girls. The truth of the matter: there just was not time. Mrs.
Guthrie, the housekeeper made meals for them most mornings, but she had Friday mornings off and it was left to Tim to get them up and at’em. Mostly, that was not a demanding task. Even so young, the girls had an enormous sense of responsibility and pretty much got themselves ready.
A few minutes later, both girls had eaten their breakfast and drained their milk and OJ glasses. It was time to go. Tim needed to drop them off at the preschool by seven-thirty and a quick glance at his watch let him know he did not have much time to waste.
“Girls, we’ve got to get going.” This was answered by some low moans. Regardless, in unison, the two of them stood from their seats, pushed the chairs back up against the table and took their plates and cups to the sink area.
Dressed in completely different clothing: Lacy in jeans and a wool sweater adorned with pumpkins, Kacy in corduroy slacks and a light brown chenille pullover, the two still looked almost identical.
In the foyer, Tim pulled open the closet door and reached in for his coat.
He could not find it.
Sure, he had hung it there the previous evening, he searched again, stepping into the closet and switching on the single light. He found his brown double-breasted Burberry overcoat on the floor, tussled up in a mound.
He reached out for it. It was damp, almost moist.
Tim felt just a flutter of panic in his gut.
“Daddy. We gotta go!” Lacy, the more verbal of the two, called from the door.
The fluttering panic fluttered away.
He grabbed up the coat and met the girls just as they reached the door into the garage.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” Kacy asked.
Realizing that he was frowning, Tim draped the coat over an arm and reached for his attaché case with the same arm. “Fine, baby girl. I’m fine.”
Even as they walked to the car, Tim knew he was not. He did not know why exactly. He just knew something was odd, almost off-kilter.
As he backed out of the garage with his girls in tow, he pushed that thought from his mind, as best he could. By the time the girls had settled into the back, watching a show on the car’s ceiling-mounted television screen, and he switched the radio on, looking for a good news program, he’d forgotten all about it.
For now.
Chapter Three
It was an alleyway down a side street off Vance Avenue. The first person to come across the body, or at least the first one to phone it in, had been a sanitation worker for the Memphis
Solid Waste Management Service Center.
Yellow police tape cordoned off the area and officials in several different uniforms stood scattered around. Tech teams had already gone over the area from top to bottom searching for any trace evidence, to an out of place hair to clothing fibers.
Dale Hinds, a uniform, had been the first to respond. When he was sure he would not lose all his breakfast over the sight that greeted his eyes, he radioed for a supervisor, who then radioed for the crime scene team and the ball had been set in motion.
Officer Hinds had arrived nine minutes after the sanitation worker had phoned in the call to the street department dispatch office: 7:43 a.m. Usually, the worker, who drove a garbage truck, would have passed this section of his route much earlier. However, his partner that usually rode with him had called in sick, putting him behind. It might very well have been a good thing. If the truck had rolled through say, an hour earlier, before sunup, the body might not have been discovered for a while yet.
Nonetheless, the driver, an aging black man by the name of Cornelius Copsy, would have much preferred for someone else to come across the corpse. Sitting on the sidestep of his big truck, he had his face buried in gloved hands, answering the questions of a cocky sergeant that lacked the people skills of a pissed off Nazi.
At 8:03 a.m., Detective Renee Juliard stepped from her Memphis Police Department sedan and headed into the menagerie. At a little over five-eight and slim, Detective Juliard did not come across as slight in the least. She was in a man’s profession. She never forgot that, not for one second. She walked with purpose and confidence, whether she felt it or not, which usually she did. Her skin was a light mocha and her eyes a searing green. Her short-cropped hair had given rise to the nickname “Bulldog”, which in less than affectionate terms meant bull dyke.
While almost everyone in the force knew the detective by that slanderous name, no one would ever say it to her face. She was not a lesbian, had never even had the inclination for another woman, but her gruff, stolid attitude made the men she worked with uncomfortable. Hence, the slander. If she were a lesbian, somehow that made their fear and dislike of her justified.
Renee ducked under the yellow tape and people parted as she walked towards Cornelius, both uniforms and suits alike. Regardless of nicknames or what, her skills in police work were well known and at a time like this, much appreciated.
Renee had been raised in Orange Mound, a notoriously poor and lawless section of Memphis.
When she finished high school, she had attended the Louisiana State University and taken a degree in social work. A bit of the Creole dialect she had acquired still haunted her, but when she returned to Memphis and applied for a position with the department, it was soon evident to everyone that this girl meant business.
She excelled in every aspect of a rookie’s life.
She made sergeant in two years, an almost unheard of accomplishment.
Two years after that she had taken, and aced, the detective’s examination.
A year later, when the powers that be ran out of excuses, she was promoted.
This was her crime scene now; everyone knew it and accepted it. By the shape the victim was in, no one would even think to argue about that. Most were just glad the case fell into someone else’s hands rather than their own.
Juliard made a quick round, inspecting the scene’s management. She made a few mental notes and then stepped to the side of the garbage truck. She spoke to the uniform questioning
Copsy. “A second, Jordan.”
The young, blonde officer looked over his shoulder at the detective. “Just a minute, detective.
I—”
“Right now,” Juliard answered. Her voice was not loud, but authority resonated throughout the words.
Officer Jordan looked back at her, hellfire in his eyes. A tight, forced grin. “Yes. Ma’am.”
He approached Juliard with balled fists and for the briefest of moments, she considered going for her gun. Jordan relaxed at the last moment.
“This guy,” she motioned toward Copsy, “the one that found the body?”
A curt nod.
Juliard’s eyes tightened. “He has a name, officer?”
“Copsy. Cornelius Copsy.”
“Details.”
Jordan considered for a moment. “That wasn’t a question. It was an order.”
The hellfire raged again in his eyes, but he went on. “At approximately 0740 hours, Mr.
Cornelius Copsy, in his capacity as a Memphis Solid Waste Management Service Center employee, was working his route. He was headed for that Dumpster right there.” Jordan pointed quickly with an ink pen to a large metal container further down the alley. “As he was working the forks into the container, he noticed an object topple out. Even in the sunlight, he wasn’t sure what the object was; only that it was ‘bigger than a breadbox’.”
Juliard started to speak, but Jordan continued. “His words, detective. A direct quote. Anyway, curiosity got the better of him. Without emptying the bin, he sat it back on the ground and climbed out to investigate. Out of the truck, he moved over to where the object had fallen.
Wrapped in a bed sheet, he saw that blood had soaked clean through. At the time, Mr. Copsy believed it to have been a dog or some other type of animal. Says you see it all the time.
Someone either drives over a family pet or decides to do away with the neighbor’s Fido that barks all night, every night.
“But as he hefted the bundle up, to place it in the bin, something just didn’t feel right. He ripped through the linen, expecting a bundle of bloody fur. But he found…”
“Our third victim,” Juliard finished.
“Yeah.”
“Good work, Jordan. Is McMillan still here?” McMillan was the on-site supervisor for thre forensics crime scene team.
“Last I looked.”
“Find him and tell him I’ll need to talk with him before he leaves.”
It was obvious that Jordan did not like the idea of being assigned as a messenger, but he chose, wisely, not to voice that concern. “Yes, ma’am.”
With the officer gone, Renee stepped over to Copsy who still had his face buried in his hands.
She placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up. Tears filled his bloodshot eyes and snot ran from his nose.
“Mr. Copsy?” she asked.
“Y-yeah.”
“Mr. Copsy, my name is Renee, Renee Juliard. I’m a detective with the police. I know you’ve had a rough morning. And I also know you’ve already been questioned by my coworker, but I need to ask you a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”
The old man almost smiled. Apparently, Juliard’s gentle approach was much more welcome than Jordan’s balls-to-the-wall Super cop manner.
“That’s fine ma’am. Just please, don’t make me look at the body again.”
Renee’s questioning took only a few minutes. When she was done with Copsy, she turned him over to a uniform and went in search of McMillan. She found him quickly. The tall, lanky man with salt-and-pepper hair was leaning against his van, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
“Detective, how are you?”
“I was fine. Until this.” Renee waved her hand at the scene.
“Yeah. Weren’t we all?”
“How’s Amber?”
“Amber’s fine, I guess. Haven’t seen her since August. Keeps telling me she’ll be in for the Christmas break. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Jud McMillan was one of the few people that had Renee had taken to straight away. He was a kind, fatherly figure who adored his daughter,
Amber, to death. A recent college enlistee, Amber was now taking classes at Michigan
State. With his wife five years gone, Amber was all that Jud had in the way of family.
“What can you tell me?”
The crime scene investigator set his coffee down on the hood of the van and immediately his face turned grave. “This is an ugly one, Renee. Really ugly.”
“Worse than the other two?”
“Much, much worse.”
“How so?”
“Follow me.”
Jud McMillan led Renee away from his van to a black van with white lettering, an almost polar opposite of Jud’s van, which was white with black lettering. It belonged to the Coroner’s
Department. The investigator spoke briefly with a man in the driver’s seat and continued on to the rear. Opening the double doors, he helped Renee up into the hold. She did not need the help but considered it rude to turn down Jud’s helping hand.
The rear of the van stank in that medicinal way only hospitals, nursing homes, and morgues ever could. Lighting was provided by several runs of fluorescent lighting affixed to the roof of the van. The light was almost too bright, too harsh.
In the center of the hold was a steel and chrome gurney. Atop it was a black body bag, complete with brass zipper. Suddenly it seemed much colder in the van. A cold that even a brisk November morning could not explain.
“You really should brace yourself, Detective.”
“I’m no virgin, Jud.”
The older man shrugged slightly, as if saying ‘if you say so.’
Jud placed a hand on the zipper and Detective Renee Juliard could not help but notice the tremble in his fingers.
Slowly, the investigator pulled the zipper downward. The sides of the bag opened.
When the zipper ended its run, Renee said. “Oh…fuck.” Jud took a deep breath. “My sentiments exactly.”
Chapter Four
One of the best fringe benefits of Tim’s job was being able to show up at the office whenever he got ready, within reason. This Friday morning he stepped through the sea of cubicles and into his glass-walled office at a little after ten.
He tossed his case onto a soft brown couch against the wall and took a seat behind his desk.
The office was not a corner office, but the view was much better than those of other section editors.
Tim had started out with the paper back in his high schools days. First, he worked in the pressroom, then as a paperboy, back when that word was still politically correct. By the time, he went off to college, he was working as an assistant copy editor. When he left Columbia with his journalism degree, the editor-in-chief had found him a spot.
The classifieds.
It was grunt work, especially with his education. Tim knew he was being put through the flame. He worked the shit job for almost six months and then he started his way up.
That had been many years ago, more than he cared to remember, actually.
He was now beating on the door to thirty-five, and he was getting older every day.
But he had a great job, with a lot of fringe benefits—including keeping his own hours—an expense account, a nice office, a good retirement building, and of course, if need be, he could leave the office for several hours a day if need be. This was usually the case.
His associate editor, Alan, was a greenhorn right out of Memphis State and was ambitious as anyone Tim had ever met. To Tim’s great delight, Alan was more loyal to Tim than he was ambitious to his job. Tim did not truly take advantage of that fact, at least not in his opinion.
Alan’s gridiron work ethic and staunch dependability made Tim’s work much easier.
He logged into his computer and launched the web browser. Usually, he checked his intranet inbox for completed articles and compared it to a calendar of deadlines. This morning, though, he wanted to order flowers and he found it much swifter to order them from FTD via the
Internet.
His home page popped up. Unlike most employees of the paper, he used Yahoo as his search browser and homepage instead of the net edition of the Appeal.
THIRD MEMPHIS VICTIM FOUND MUTILATED AND TRASHED!
The headline screamed out at him. Tim stared back at the screen.
Third.
Memphis.
Victim.
Found.
Mutilated.
Trashed.
Tim pulled his chair a bit closer to his desk and propped his chin on his fists.
MEMPHIS-Monica Gypsum is the third victim of what has become the nation’s most recent rash of serial killings. Discovered earlier this morning, the body of the twenty-seven-year-old
Gypsum was found horribly disfigured and deposited in a trash receptacle in the river section of the city.
Police officials and the mayor’s office were not available for comment.
Steve Huntington, a law enforcement correspondent based out of New York City, had this to say, “The most crucial moments of a serial murder investigation are the initial hours. If serious headway is not gained within the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours, the trail becomes cold.
Regardless of successive crimes, the criminal has the opportunity to not only prepare for the next act, but to observe the police and their actions as they work the scene and launch an investigation.”
When asked if it was really reasonable to believe that the killer could learn much from watching the news and reading the newspapers, Huntington responded, “Of course. Don’t our generals tune in to CNN before when engaged in war?”
On-site investigative reporters have been in-city since the first murder was reported less than two weeks ago. Keri Kimbrough and Telia Jackson, respectively, were the first two victims. Both women were Memphis and Shelby county residents.
Based on available statistics, serial killers that focus exclusively on women almost always turn out to be men.
Whether the women were sexually assaulted or not has not been disclosed by local authorities.
Ms. Gypsum was employed the city’s NBC affiliate and was single.
When Tim finished with the article, he slumped back in a leather wing chair. Sweat had formed on his brow and he wiped it almost involuntarily.
He tented his fingers and tried to relax. Relaxation just would not come.
One of his jobs after leaving Classifieds was as a crime reporter. During that time, he had been able to develop some strong ties to the local police, the sheriff’s department, and the
Memphis FBI and ATF offices.
Tim shuffled through his rolodex, found what he was looking for and dialed a number into his desk phone.
“It’s your quarter,” a gruff but familiar voice answered after several rings.
“You know pay phones went up to fifty cents about five years ago.” Tim tried to sound lighthearted.
“Pay phones? They still have them things? Who is this, by the way?”
“Steve, this Tim, Tim Seale. With the Commercial Appeal.”
“Tim Seale. Seems like I knew a fella by that name. Was a good reporter. Nosy as hell, but hell, that was his job. Heard he got himself a cushy spot writing about bake sales and floral contests.”
“It’s a hard life, Steve. But someone’s got to do it.”
The party on the other end laughed, and Tim relaxed a little.
“Well, my long lost friend, Tim Seale, what can I do for you?”
“I’m actually trying to help a guy out down in the City section, a crime reporter.”
“The serial killer?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. This young man has just started with the paper and somehow he’s assigned the job. Well, needless to say the cops aren’t very forthcoming with him, he being new and everything.”
“Uh-huh,” Steve said. Tim heard the armor go up almost as if it were the ring of metal against metal.
“So I was hoping maybe you could…”
“Fill in some blanks?”
“Exactly.”
“Listen, Tim, I’m not trying to be a hard-ass on this one. I’m really not. But this dude means business. Real business. Jack the Ripper kind of business. And the department is asking for, no, fuck that, they’re demanding a media blackout. That’s from the chief himself. I can’t talk about it. I shouldn’t even be having this conversation with you.”
“Steve, you can’t be serious.”
“Tim, I’m deadly serious. Now, goodbye and wish the new kid good luck.”
With that, Tim’s biggest hope at getting an answer was gone as the line clicked off.
He sat there for a moment looking out over downtown Memphis. Steve Wands, one of the supervisors on the force, either had been on the scene or knew who had. The MPD could talk about media blackout all they wanted, but cops talked like a bunch of old women after Sunday morning preaching. He just had to think of one that did not mind doing it to someone that was not a cop.
Now, he could not think of anyone. He resigned himself to push the whole serial killer stuff from his head. It was not easy and it did not work. While he had been playing detective, however, his inbox piled up. He clicked open a few attachments and before he knew it, lunchtime had come and gone.
When he next checked the time, it was a quarter to five. Mrs. Guthrie would have picked the girl’s up from school and already prepared supper for them, knowing full well that neither he nor
Stephanie would be home at a reasonable hour.
It saddened him to think about how busy their lives had become that they depended on someone that was not even family to care for the girls. Sure, it could not be helped, but that made very little difference. Things would change one day. At least that is what he always told himself, never taking the time to believe it.
Tim finished up at seven. He stood from his desk and stretched. After clipping his cell phone to his belt, he strode over to the coat rack and checked his overcoat. He found it dry. Whatever wet it left no stain and no residue.
Pulling it on, he grabbed his attaché case, and switched off the light on his way out.
It was almost four hours later when he arrived home.
The kids were asleep.
Stephanie was in bed snoozing.
He assumed Mrs. Guthrie was up in her room working on another one of her endless needlepoint creations. When Stephanie’s practice had really gotten going and it was evident that
Tim could not pick up the slack, they decided a nanny was needed. Not just any nanny. Despite their busy lives and hectic work schedules, Tim and Stephanie loved the girls and only wanted the best for them.
Stephanie had met Mrs. Guthrie through the clinic and had grown close to her as the woman’s granddaughter, which she had sole guardianship over, suffered through leukemia. The small child, Amanda, had been strong-willed and valiant. Nevertheless, in the end, the disease was stronger.
She died before reaching her eighth birthday.
After an acceptable time of mourning had passed, Stephanie, with Tim’s consent, had approached the fifty-five-year-old widow with a job offer. Besides a rather handsome salary, she would also receive room and board, and major medical insurance. All she had to do was sacrifice almost every free moment she had for the children of strangers.
Apparently, Mrs. Guthrie decided that caring for someone else’s kids was preferable to sitting in a lonely house pondering why her precious little Amanda had been taken so young; she jumped at the opportunity. Soon she was part of the family. Kacy and Lacy took to her like a duck to water and Tim found her presence and watchful eye over the girls reassuring.
She was also sweeter than she had any right to be.
When he walked through the kitchen at eleven on the dot, he found a scrawled note in Mrs.
Guthrie’s handwriting. DINNER IN THE MICROWAVE. In addition, what a fine dinner it was.
Blacked chicken and vegetable stir fry with a big hunk of pumpkin pie on the side.
After eating until his gut pushed so hard against his trousers he thought the zipper might give way, Tim mounted the stairs and entered the bedroom.
As always, Stephanie was asleep, facing the opposite wall. Tim undressed as quietly as he could and went into the bathroom.
He did not like the look of himself in the mirror. Haggard was a good word for it, as was worn. The one word he thought of most as he stood gazing into his brown eyes was faded.
Tim was faded.
His brown hair had dulled. His eyes had lost their shine. Even his skin, which usually stayed relatively tanned throughout the year, was ashen and gray. He looked sick, poorly.
He pivoted on his right foot and reached for the closet adjacent to the shower stall. One good thing about being married to a doctor was there was never a shortage of medicine in the house, particularly prescription drugs.
Tim rifled through the brown and orange bottles with white tops. He read the names as he checked each and every one.
Lexapro.
Diovan.
Lortab.
Wellbutrin.
Darvocet.
Claritin.
Xanaz.
The list went on and one, but he stopped at two identical bottles. Lunesta and Ambien.
He opened the Ambien and popped two in his mouth. Setting the bottle back in the closet, he turned and started the shower. For fifteen minutes, he let the hot, soapy water sluice away tension, fatigue, and the perfume of another woman.
When he emerged, he could barely keep his eyelids open. He truly hoped sleep would be kind and blissful this night. Another long night without rest and he just might crack.
How long had it been since he had arisen rested and alert. A week? Two weeks? Longer? He
could not recall, but as he settled beneath the sheets and allowed his eyelids to fall shut, he realized it did not even matter.
Within seconds, Tim Seale was asleep.
Chapter Five
U.S. Highway 78 ran east and west from Birmingham, Al, to Memphis, Tennessee, bisecting a large part of Mississippi in the process. A future corridor for I-20, the roadway was highly maintained and except for the numbing redundancy of the landscape was nice to travel.
Unless you had been doing so twice daily for over five years. To Regina Capshaw the only good thing about 78 was that the posted speed limit of seventy mph let her drive at seventy-five mph without fear of a traffic citation. Traveling at that speed, she could very well be out of her office near the river and at her home, a nicely appointed Mediterranean-style structure four miles outside of Southaven, Mississippi, in Desoto County, in a little over half an hour.
Desoto County was becoming quite the nesting ground for successful Memphians wanting to earn the good money of the booming metropolis, but yearning for a much safer environment.
Thousands made the daily commute back and forth. In the beginning, real estate values had been reasonable. Now, however, with the influx of all the well-to-dos, it was downright scary. Regina, however, had been in right before the market spiked and her sprawling home and four acre tract of land had set her back only cool two million. Out of fun, she had the property appraised this summer: six million.
Not a bad property investment. Not bad at all considering that Regina was a divorce attorney and knew next to nothing about land value and such.
Now, as her pearl white Cadillac Escalade cut up through the night, slicing twin cylinders above the macadam of the highway, she thought about the phone call that had roused her from her sleep.
It was a few minutes after twelve and she had been sleeping peacefully.
She rarely answered the phone after going to bed. Of course, it was that one time you did something that you lived to regret it.
The voice on the other end had been desperate, pleading. Regina was not usually overly compassionate. Having earned her degree at twenty-nine, she had settled into a small Memphis firm, specializing in probate law. She made little money, and had a rather dull life. When she discovered how much money there was to be made in other peoples failed marriages, she quickly changed gears and joined an upstart practice that represented only divorce cases. In five years, she was a millionaire. Six years later, she was that ten times over. Somehow, compassion and decency had little to do with winning the types of cases she represented. So, in a sort of way, she lost the ability to even emulate them, save, of course, for when she had to perform in front of a jury.
There was something completely different about the voice on the phone. It took her back to a time before law school. Back before she became a woman. When she was nothing but a frail little girl that feared the shadow and the strong, merciless hand of an alcoholic father.
There was no ignoring the need in the caller’s voice.
So here she was. She had dressed hurriedly and jumped into the Escalade. Her foot was pressed hard down the accelerator. The needle was shaking at the one hundred mph mark and she, a chain smoker of full-flavor Marlboros, had not even considered lighting up…yet.
She had activated her hazard lights, hoping that would give her at least an ounce of protection against the highway patrol and their damned radar guns.
The dark landscape passed by. The periphery of her headlights lit a small part of the world beyond, but she did not care. If she were driving past the fiery landscape of Hell, she could not have cared less.
The only thought she could fully grasp was arriving at her destination.
Fifteen minutes later, Regina wheeled off the highway into the parking lot of a large truck stop just inside the Memphis city limits. This time of night there was no movement in the dark lot. Only the sound of the idling diesels and their running lights, perpetually afire to break the dark ink of the November night.
She pulled to the rear of the lot and, making sure the door locks were engaged, killed the engine. She had parked so that the rear of the SUV was facing the rear and she could watch for any upcoming traffic by just looking straight ahead and side to side.
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
And then fifteen.
Slowly, but most surely, her hard-edged temperament started seeping back in.
After waiting in the lot for twenty minutes, she fumbled in the console between the seats for a pack of cigarettes. She fingered through sheaves of paper, legal briefs, home shopping catalogs, and empty packs before her fingers brushed over a pack that she could tell was unopened.
Relieved, she pulled the pack free and pulled a cheap Bic lighter from the pocket on her door.
She worked frantically at the tab that would release the cellophane, free the coffin nails and deliver one more dose of cancer to her already blackened, yet wanting, lungs.
Her driver’s side window exploded inward. Shattered glass rained over her like an avalanche of solid, stinging ice.
“Fuck!” Regina managed before she was grabbed by an unseen hand around the throat. She was yanked out of her seat and through the window. She fell to the ground, her knees cracking on the hard pavement. Still, the hand that squeezed around her throat did not loosen. If anything, it only tightened.
She looked up to see who, or what, had done this to her, thinking in that instant what kind of lawsuit she could throw on their ass. Just as she turned to look, though, a solid fist smacked into her upturned face.
The night came alive with hot, pinpoint stars of blazing white and searing red. It had to have been a frigging sledgehammer that hit her, no human could hit that hard.
Or so she thought.
She was plucked from the ground and hefted up over the assailant’s head. Slowly, her vision returned. Unfortunately, in this vantage there was nothing to see but the dead black of a cloud- filled sky.
Then she was down again. Hurled forward. She rolled through the air as children were taught to Stop, Drop, and Roll. There was no damp concrete beneath her when she crashed down. She continued her roll on something solid, but hollow. She felt the surface shimmy as she fought to stop her roll.
Her head cracked against something hard, and unforgiving.
Regina rolled over on her back and let loose a moan of pure agony. Never in her life had she been this abused, this beaten. Her eyelids cracked.
Light. Soft and golden. Dim.
Her vision was fuzzy and she blinked several times hoping to clear it. She did. The sight before her made no more sense than it did when she saw it through muddled eyes.
Bare bulbs had been strung along the two walls of a…of a tractor-trailer, she supposed. A long one by the looks of it. One dim bulb every two feet, lighting nothing except for a small radius around each one.
Her hands were palm down and she felt something odd. She did not feel the cold wood of the trailer floor, but something else. Crinkly and stiff in the cool temperature. Plastic. A drop cloth similar to the ones painters used.
Someone thought things were bound to get messy.
That thought sickened Regina. She scrambled around trying to pull herself to her feet.
The figure emerged from the rear of the trailer.
The sight of it made Regina’s breath catch in her throat.
At six feet tall, the figure was wide-shouldered and powerfully built. Dark slacks, a black trench coat over a ribbed black shirt covered the body. A length of black material covered his face and head down to where the collar of the trench.
“W-What do you want?” she barely managed.
The dark, almost fluid thing stepped closer. The weak light from the strung bulbs touched, but failed to penetrate the murky aura surrounding the shape.
“I-I said, what do you want?” If her voice had trembled before, it was downright quaking now.
“To…hurt…you.” The voice, unmistakably a man’s, said.
That broke her. Regina Capshaw was a small, delicate branch cracked in half. Snapped clean in two.
She only realized her bottom lip was quivering after she bit deep down into it.
With a reserve of unknown energy, she threw herself backwards, away from the stranger, escape, and the need for it, coursed through her veins like a mighty river…
…and she was stopped cold by the rear wall of the trailer. She found it just as hard and unrelenting as the floor had been.
This time the breath flew from her like a burst balloon.
No moan this time but a gentle, quiet cry.
The figure continued to approach, eating the diminutive space between them like sweet, honeyed air.
At three feet from her, he stood above her like a skyscraper.
She wanted to bargain, to play Let’s Make A Deal. When he withdrew the straight razor from within his trench coat, she knew the time for negotiation had passed. If it had ever existed in the first place.
“Noooo,” she whimpered.
The dark stranger moved to her. For the flash of an instant, she thought he was reaching down, to heft her up and bounce her down once again. Like a deflated basketball.
He crouched quickly, with the speed of a serpent. The blade sliced into her left ankle, severing her peroneus brevis tendon like warm butter. Her leg erupted in fire, in pain.