String of Murder

by brett hicks

  In short, being a cop is not about the coin in your pocket, or the extravagance—nor even about the action. Being a cop is about keeping the innocent safe and serving as a shield for those not trained to protect themselves. Every social hierarchy since the dawn of man has had a warrior cast, a select group that throws themselves at death, and danger so that the rest of the species doesn’t get picked off. We are the counter-predators, we hunt the hunters, and we do so with minimal complaints about our shit coin earnings.

  Every time I enter this building, I feel a sense of pride at being included in the traditions of protecting the public. I pride myself on being added to the ranks of the Colonial men and women, who protect the rest of our kind, and our way of life.

  Bobby strode into the revolving door entrance ahead of me, and I followed closely behind. The four officers stationed around the front snap to life, inspecting the new arrivals. They relaxed in degrees as they see familiar faces. Two pointedly ignore Bobby, but the other two cut us a sharp salute of respect befitting our rank as black badge detectives. We both return their crisp salutes with equally proper ones of our own.

  “Good evening detectives, working the late shift again?”

  A young Spanish teen girl greets us. She is a rookie with a shiny new silver badge. I remembered her classes’ ceremony of graduation recently. She was only sixteen, and she was five-two, very small. She had not let that stop her from graduating third in her class, and first in hand-to-hand training.

  “Night Olivia, how are ye, love?”

  I said by way of greeting, and I gave her a warm smile. My Irish accent was in full bloom once more. Bobby ignored the way my accent changed in public, he had asked once but learned quickly that this topic was a no-mans-land with me. Bobby nodded to the girl as well, “Good evening darlin, I hope that you’re not going to be kept up here much longer.”

  He said since he knew she was about to come up for street patrol duty, or foot patrol, either one. Olivia was gunning to earn her charcoal, then her black badge, she wanted my job, and I saw the fire in her brown eyes every time we crossed paths.

  “Olivia, be a good girl and go make me some coffee.”

  The charcoal- badged desk Sargent said none-to-kindly to her. He looked at me with a hard-eyed look, and said, “Don’t you go filling her bloody head full of hopeless ambition. This is still a man’s job. The brass is not going to make a trend of this unseemly practice.”

  Bobby clamped a hand on my shoulder and fixed me with a hard look, I knew what it meant all too well, “this is not worth the trouble it will cause.” He was all but screaming it. Without Bobby at my side, I would probably end up written up twice a week, and two more times for every sexual degradation I was hit with. You would think all these supposed “gentlemen” would talk kindly to a lady, but no. I have been told that I needed a stiff member to shut my sassy mouth up, not just once or twice. I love my job, but sometimes I want to stick a dirk in the soft spot between their legs!

  “That’s it, your negro here knows to mind his own bloody affairs!”

  I snatched my hand out of Bobby’s grasp and I snarled like a beast. I plucked a dirk about three-inches long from a sleeve concealed holster in my left jacket sleeve. I pressed it against the Sargent’s jugular and his throat bobbed.

  “You’re lucky that I don’t commit murder, or you would be dead by now. These piss-poor bloody reflexes are why you were passed over for the black badge mate. You speak another word out of line about the color of anyone’s skin, and I will perhaps make an exception, and you will not like to meet me in some dark alley, away from prying eyes.”

  Bobby grabbed my shoulders and he calmly said, “Enough.” He had a way of being deep and authoritative when he chose to be. I glared as if I wished my eyes could burn bloody holes through the Sargent, and I huffed, then I lowered my dirk, and slid the small blade back into its holster.

  Everyone in the front, including several chained suspects, were staring in shock. I waved casually, and I cleared my throat.

  “As you were, people.”

  Surprisingly, or maybe not so much so, people all turned away and went back to whatever they were doing. I very much believe humans are pack animals and displays like this only further prove my case. They respect the apex predator, who can best her challengers, and they don’t desire to quarrel with her. This fact does rankle with the men, since I have a vagina, and I have a pair of breasts. Men loathe to submit to women, unless you are talking about those men in their fancy suits, who get caught paying for sex and spankings. (I sometimes just leave the dominator to whip and degrade her customers in peace. Call me a hypocrite if you will, but who am I to interfere in such matters?)

  ***

  When I finally arrived down at the lowest level of the large building, Jasmine was waiting in the morgue lobby for us. She had a bemused look on her face and a very wicked little smile on her perfect natural pink lips. Her lab coat was pristine and perfectly starched, so I assume she had changed out of her previous, and much more bloody garments. Her wild brown curls were pulled into a tight bun, but a few rebellious locks seemed to escape confinement. Her long lashes flicked a few times, and her green-brown mixed eyes drank me in for a very protracted moment. Every single time our gazes locked, it is as if time has no meaning to us as the world stops.

  “Doctor.”

  My voice was tight with emotions barely hidden behind a facade of professionalism. Jasmine licked her soft pink lips, and her lashes fluttered one last time, and I felt as if I was under her spell again. The savage part of me wanted to grab her, and remind her in a very vigorous, and orgasmic manner whose woman she was! I know how that sounds, and yes, I totally sound like a man right now!

  “Detectives, I heard there was a bit of an incident in the main reception room? Something about a crazy blonde lady with a knife.”

  My lips twitched in amusement, and I shrugged.

  “Did I miss that? Hell, I should go back up and arrest that crazy woman!”

  I said in a faux-sincere voice and Jasmine rolled her eyes. She kept her beautiful gaze fixed on me like I might vanish into smoke, or something equally mysterious if she let me out of her sight.

  “What did they do this time, Robert?”

  Jasmine asked my partner, he cleared his throat and said, “I believe the source of her grievance had to do with someone calling me a negro.”

  Jasmine’s eyes widened, and she huffed.

  “Well, for once, I think our crazy detective had the right of it!”

  I was pretty sure my eyes were about to stress the sockets and pop free. Bobby looked just about as surprised as I was. He had never heard Jasmine condone my ridiculous temper or the irrational things it led me to do. Come to think of it, how have I not been fired yet?! There were some things only the Great Spirit knew, this would be one of them!

  “Doctor, if we’re done dissecting my life choices, could we perhaps move on to the matter of the two freshly dissected bodies in your large freezer?”

  Jasmine squinted at me and glared.

  “That is a laboratory cold-room, not a bloody freezer, honestly!”

  She said with her slightly Irish sounding Nexus City accent. Jasmine was a native, born and bred. She was from a family who could afford to live on the skyline if they wished but had remained grounded. And soon, all their assets would pass to some shmuck, they were basically paying him to get to fuck my ex-girlfriend and use her like a human baby factory! I honestly thought of ways to kill the git every time my mind strayed to this topic!

  I noticed that Jasmine’s ring was absent tonight. She usually wore it everywhere, but she must have forgotten to put it back on after completing her autopsies. She motioned towards the cold-room, or the fancy freezer, as I called it. Between my brooding about her impending nuptials, and my run-in with the desk Sargent before that, I was not in much of a joking mood now. I also had to figure something out, so I could keep a promise I made to a very sad little orphan girl.

 
“The smell is pretty bad, so be warned you two. Nothing can completely erase the scent of death, as you both should know very well by now.”

  Jasmine passed us a pair of white linen masks to cover our mouths with. Bobby and I strapped them on without a word of complaint. When you work with the dead as much as we do, you learn to take your medical examiner’s advice on the scent of certain things.

  We walked in on the tiled black and white checker-patterned floor and two forms were covered by a red-stained white sheet over each. I inhaled a breath and the sour rot in the air hit me, even through the mask. I sucked in the air and did my best to ignore the scent. This was not my first time with a dead body or even these dead bodies, so I would make do.

  Nineteen:

  I had already killed several monstrous men by the time I found myself staring at a dissected body in my first morgue. Even then, I threw up after seeing the process laying bare for me on the cold slab. Now, I don’t get sick anymore, but I am far from okay with seeing a once-living human being cut open on a lab table. This to me is well beyond the natural, yet it is necessary to help us learn the methods of murder. To become the masters of death, at least in some limited capacity.

  The electrical conduits buzzed audibly around the walls. The morgue was very close to the electrical power apparatus that feeds power to the entire station. Personally, the morgue is unsettling for two reasons, the cold death, and the possibility of being electrocuted. At least here, no one was worried about the electric randomly cutting out from lack of power being fed to the building, like my apartment.

  Jasmine pulled back the sheet covering Donna Smithfield’s body, and the wounds looked somehow more visceral with the deep purple welts, and the now clean lacerations along her neck. I narrowed my vision, ignoring the top of her opened chest cavity.

  “So, what did you find?”

  I asked in a tone that sounded more impatient than was typical of me. Jasmine pointed to the neck wounds and ran a gloved hand along the wound.

  “This is thicker in diameter than the typical garrote. I have ruled out the piano wire, and other such common choices. I also dug out bits of metal fragments from the flesh and some embedded deeply into the tissues around the fatal wound. I then had a metal expert come in, and he identified it as nickel. He said that it was nickel braided into a string, he is almost certain it might have been an instrument string.”

  My eyes widened a fraction, and I said, “Like a guitar string?”

  She nodded, and said, “That was not the first string I tried, but it is the one I ultimately discovered after much trial and error. That is what took me so long to finish this autopsy. Identifying the exact murder weapon was tricky and required a lot of different experiments.”

  I nodded, I had begun to wonder why Jasmine, who was the best doctor this side of the Atlantic, was taking days to give me results I needed. While I try not to press the ME’s, I was nearly tempted to storm this Great Spirit forsaken morgue, just to see what the holdup was.

  “So, we are looking for a guitar player?”

  I asked, and she shrugged, “Or someone who bought the cord thinking it would make a nice choice of murder weapons?”

  “Did you consult a specialist on instrument strings?”

  Jasmine huffed, and she crossed her arms over her lush breasts.

  “You ask that as if you just met me, Detective.” She said crossly, and I held up my hands in surrender, and she continued, “The expert’s conclusion was that it is a mass manufactured string, a cheap E-string. Any number of locations around the empire carry them.”

  I swore in a tangent to myself, and I kicked the steel cabinet. Jasmine gave me a hostile look and coolly said, “We’ve talked about you not trashing my workspace.”

  Again, I held up my hands and said, “Sorry, sorry, just not exactly a good thing. Now, even if I run down every damnable Brit music store, there is little chance I will be able to tie the killer to any purchase.”

  Jasmine gave me her no-nonsense-stare, and Bobby watched in mild amusement, which he tried very hard to hide. Jasmine was one of the few people in this world who could lock horns with me and come out on top—verbally speaking.

  “I’ve been telling you to consult with a counselor, it will help with your rage issues!”

  I bit out, “I do not have rage issues, Jasmine!”

  (That might not have been the best way to articulate this particular point. Nor was the fact that I gave her metal cabinet a second kick.)

  Jasmine pulled me by the sleeve, and I let her drag me out of the door, and into the hall. She tugged me, and we were soon in her small office. She had everything neatly arrayed, and all her many stacks of paper files were in neat piles organized by their content types, or departments. She had a leather comfort office chair, one I had saved back for two months to buy for her last Winter Solstice.

  Jasmine let go of me long enough to remove the rubber gloves she had been wearing and set them neatly on the side of her desk. She puffed up and looked up at me. Her eyes had warring emotions, annoyance, and concern. The first was to be expected, but the second I found was wholly welcome, yet completely awkward for us now.

  She looked at me, and she seemed to soften her gaze after a moment.

  “Please, tell me what is going on. Why are you so angry about this case? Julie, what is it you’re not telling me?”

  My chest tightened like the world’s largest python had just wrapped itself around me. My eyes went wide, and I felt so many things at this moment. Her nearness was so nostalgic and so familiar to me. I wanted to lean into her, to confide everything, and to let her stroke her smaller hands all over my body, smothing all my ruffled feathers, and easing every frayed nerve. I could taste her, she was so near to me now. I could feel the heat of her lingering touch moments before. My mind was a mess of confounding, and contradictory emotions. Entangled yearnings seemed to spring up between the two of us. The heat, the passion, and the mutual respect we had shared for so long, it was right here with us. Jasmine was right here, she was with me—touching me again. Bullets, knives, and stranglers I could handle without breaking a sweat, but here and now, this was agony renewed.

  All I had to do was pull her to me, and I could claim her lips again, I could taste her skin and relish the soft comfort of her tender supple body. She was like a narcotic to me, she was my vice, and she was my albatross. My heart was still very much chained to her as if she possessed the unseen parts of my soul for herself.

  I could touch her, I could claim her, but then she would remember to put that damn ring back on. She would again belong to some male, like a high-priced whore, except it was she who was paying him, in a manner of speaking.

  I expelled all the air I had been holding in since she touched me. I finally looked away, and the spell was shattered like fragile glass workings dropped from the top of a building. Jasmine noticed the immediate change in my disposition, and she stepped back, and I almost thought I saw a tear slide down her cheek, but the lighting was too low to be sure. When I saw her face clearly again, she was composed, and void of any tears to speak of.

  “We had better get back to doing our jobs.”

  She said, in a business-crisp tone befitting a doctor of her lofty educational status. I bobbed my head weakly, and I managed to keep my gob shut, lest I say something that we would both live to regret.

  As we silently walked back to the cold exam room, I reminded myself of the little sleeping twelve-year-old girl who was counting on me to bring her mother’s killer to justice, and to keep her safe from any potential reprisal.

  “Well, everyone’s still alive, and you’re both wearing all your clothes, there is a merciful God above after all!”

  Bobby said jokingly, and Jasmine flushed slightly. She seemed to be remembering the heated exchange in the office just as much as I was. Not for the first time, I was now fantasizing about her fiancé being found after a nasty slip from the skyline.

  “So, both victims were killed with a guitar
E-string utilized as a garrote?”

  Bobby asked, changing the flow of the conversation, and the mood in the room. I was back to thinking a mile a minute now. Being a professional, so was Jasmine, and she nodded stiffly.

  “The lacerations are an exact match on both victims. The second victim, or really the first, technically speaking, had more wire embedded in her neck. She fought so hard, that I was able to gather enough of the nickel for the identification, due to her vigorous struggle.”

  My gut lurched slightly at this, and part of me was proud that Mary had managed to leave us such an important clue to follow.

  “Was there any sign of sexual assault?”

  I asked, but I was fairly sure of the answer after talking to Avery. Jasmine shook her head in a wide, “no.” I bit my lip and I thought deeply.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  Jasmine frowned and said, “there was one thing that bothered me with Mary. She had a patch of her outer thigh that looked like it had been burned with a branding iron at some point. I noted traces of ink marks around the brand mark.”

  My eyes widened, and I moved over hastily, and nearly crashed into Bobby in my hurry to see the wound. Bobby jumped back, and he swore under his breath at me. I was too focused to care right now.

  I pulled the sheet back and on her left thigh was a three-inch section of flesh seared with smudged tattoo ink obscured by the burn. I looked at the other two in the room, and they were looking at me as if I had finally snapped. I waved them off and said, “It’s just a crude way to remove an unwanted tattoo. I thought it might be something else.”

  I smoothly lied to them, no one could know what that was, or why I knew it. The scar to cover the proof of loyalty. We all carry scars in some way or another, they are proof of our membership in the most exclusive club in the colonies. Mary Sanders was a Revolutionary. Bobby and Jasmine both looked less than convinced with me a sudden reversal of behavior, but I could just ignore them for as long as it took before they gave up on inquiring about this. That proved to be unnecessary.