It was well past midnight now, but just one solid knock was enough to awaken the man inside. A light in a room on the second floor came on, but Drake deliberately dropped back into the shadows. When the light flicked off again, Drake stepped up and knocked once more.
After three such sequences, someone hurried down the stairs. A second later, the door was pulled wide. Drake opened his mouth to speak, but when he saw the barrel of a shotgun staring back at him, he changed his mind.
“Tobin? I—wait, you?” Dr. Alex Cratom asked. “What do you want?”
“For starters, for you to take the gun out of my face.”
The man had other ideas; he took two steps outside his home and Drake backed up.
“You came knocking on my door at midnight, PI, so maybe you should start explaining and stop giving orders.”
If it hadn’t been clear before when they’d first met, it was obvious now that Dr. Alex Cratom wasn’t just a veterinarian.
“I’m here inquiring about a specific cat.”
“You already asked me about Ms. Schmidt’s cat. I don’t know where he is.”
“Really? You mean you don’t know you strangled Cosmo, broke his neck, then kicked the poor animal’s body across an alley?”
The question worked exactly as planned. Dr. Cratom was taken aback and confusion set in. He lowered the gun and stared at Drake.
“What? What are you—”
The dark fist came out of nowhere and struck Dr. Cratom square in the jaw. The veterinarian’s eyes hadn’t even finished rolling back into his head before his body crumpled onto the stoop.
***
“Did you really have to hit him that hard?” Drake asked as he examined Dr. Cratom’s chin. It was red and swollen, and he thought that the man’s jaw might be broken.
Leroy shrugged.
“I didn’t mean to. I mean, better too hard than too soft… if I didn’t knock him out, he would have probably shot you in the face.”
Drake cocked his head to one side and looked at his partner.
“Fair point. But next time, maybe ease up, just a li—”
Dr. Cratom grunted and he bucked his lower half.
“Grab the chair! Grab the chair!” Drake ordered.
Leroy slid behind the man and grasped his chair seconds before it toppled. The bucking had been mostly involuntary but even if the veterinarian had attempted to break free, it would’ve proven impossible; his wrists and ankles were heavily taped to the armrests and legs, respectively.
Another grunt and Dr. Cratom opened his eyes. They were glassy.
“What do you want?” the man asked, sans consonants.
“I want to know why you killed Cosmo.”
Sheer confusion fell on Dr. Cratom’s warped features.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t kill any cat. You gotta let me go—” he struggled unsuccessfully against his bindings as he looked around. “Wait—what? This is my office? What the hell is going on here?”
Drake admired the facility.
“Yeah, we found your keys in your pocket and figured this would be a quiet place to talk. The only thing that doesn’t fit—in addition to why someone who has dedicated his life to helping animals would so savagely murder one—is your lack of forehead tattoo.”
Dr. Cratom was truly dumbfounded now.
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
Drake frowned.
Now that his mind was clearing, that all the soot had shaken free of his neurons, he realized that there was a lot wrong with the narrative he was trying to weave, more than he’d already illustrated.
“Here, I want to show you something.”
Drake pulled out his cell phone and played the vet the video of Cosmo’s last moments. Halfway through, Dr. Cratom tried to look away, but Drake grabbed his chin and forced him to watch.
“Jesus, turn it off,” Dr. Cratom pleaded. “…it’s disgusting. Turn it off.”
Drake observed the man closely. Unless Dr. Cratom had some sort of split personality, he concluded that there was no way that he was the one depicted in the video.
Which begged the question, who the hell was it? And why the hell was he in Dr. Cratom’s neighborhood? Just an unfortunate coincidence?
Drake put his phone away.
“What kind of psycho did that?”
Drake ignored the question and looked about the room. Although he had little to no experience with vet clinics, this one, or, at least, this area, looked more like the operating room of a county hospital than a place used to treat small animals.
“It wasn’t me—it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I know.” Drake looked at Leroy, who just shrugged. He decided to change tactics. “Do you know anybody with a forehead tattoo, Dr. Cratom?”
“Forehead tattoo? No, of course not. Just let me—” the man winced. “—I think you broke my fucking jaw.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
Drake scratched his beard as he tried to put these seemingly unconnected pieces of the puzzle together. He refused to believe that the cat killer being in Dr. Cratom’s neighborhood was just a coincidence, in part, because such an acknowledgment would mean that he was back to where he started.
No, they’re related. They have to be.
In his mind, he saw Dr. Cratom opening the door with a shotgun in hand. Sure, it had been late, but it was almost as if the vet had expected… someone.
Someone with bad intentions.
“I’ll concede that you didn’t kill the cat, doctor, but I think you know more than you are letting on. Why would this man in the video, the one with a forehead tattoo, be coming from your house? Think, doc, because I doubt you get too many midnight callers.”
Dr. Cratom cursed.
“I told you already… I don’t know who killed the cat and I don’t know anyone with a… forehead tattoo.”
And there it was: the slightest of hesitations before uttering those final two words.
Drake smiled and dropped so that he was at eye level with the man taped to the chair.
“Now that, I don’t believe.”
Dr. Cratom averted his eyes and remained silent.
“Fine,” Drake said, rising. “Then maybe my friend here will do his best to adjust your jaw. I figure if he hits you on the other side, that’ll level things out. What do you think?”
Silence.
Drake looked to Leroy, but the man was confused. They had planned the attack outside the vet’s house, but this was completely off the cuff. It took several nods and gestures before Leroy got the idea.
He stepped forward and balled his fists.
“One more chance, Dr. Cratom, tell us—”
“It’s not a tattoo,” the man suddenly spat. “It’s a surgical scar.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed, which brought the background into focus, as well as the final piece of the puzzle.
The gurney, too big for even a large dog, the oxygen masks, the unlabeled yellow prescription bottles.
Drake chuckled.
“And let me guess, doc, you know this because you were the one who performed that surgery. Am I right?”
Chapter 53
“Wave for the camera, Ken,” Chad instructed in a singsong voice.
It was a rhetorical command, however; Kenneth was immobilized in the kitchen chair. He couldn’t even speak, couldn’t jibber-jabber in Chinese or whatever the hell language he used; his mouth was taped.
But his eyes… Kenneth’s eyes portrayed his intense fear.
Chad poked his head in front of the camera. Even though his face from the nose down was covered, it wouldn’t take long for the authorities to figure out who Kenneth was, and then discovering his identity would happen quickly.
But that didn’t matter; this was to be Chad’s last video for a while, at least.
Go out on a high note… don’t look desperate. Don’t pull a Lindsay Lohan.
“Chad here, coming back with another outstanding video for all you super f
ans out there, this time from the comforts of my own home. I know you guys looooved my last two videos… but they were nothing compared to this one. Nothing. This here—” Chad leaned to one side and revealed his roommate’s face, his wet eyes. The man’s muffled cries intensified, but they were incomprehensible. “—is Kenneth. And this here is a butcher’s knife. Kenneth, knife. Knife, Kenneth. Who do you think is going to win this greeting?”
Chad held the butcher’s knife up to one of the lamps and twisted it, causing it to glint brightly.
He couldn’t see what the camera saw, but he knew it looked good.
No, no, no—not good, great.
Amazing.
“Spoiler alert, it’s the knife.”
And with that, Chad42819 raised the butcher knife high in the air and, without hesitation, brought it down as hard as he could right on the side of Kenneth Leung’s neck.
Chapter 54
“He wanted me to shave down his forehead,” Dr. Cratom said, averting his gaze.
“Shave down his forehead?” Drake repeated, cringing.
“Yeah, pre-frontal eminence shaving. Basically, you peel back the scalp and shave down the bone, make the brow thinner, less pronounced.”
Drake looked around. While Dr. Cratom’s operating room was impressive, it didn’t look like it was equipped for anything more than minor surgery.
He said as much.
“No, no, I didn’t fucking do it—are you nuts?” Dr. Cratom said, shaking his head. “I mean, I could do it, but I’d need a whole team of people.”
“But I thought you said that the thing on his forehead is a surgical scar?” Leroy piped it.
“It is, but not from shaving his skull. Fuck that. He just wouldn’t stop, just kept pestering. The only way I could get him to leave me alone was to do something.”
“So, you just cut him open and sewed him back up again?” Leroy asked. “Then, what? Told him that you’d done the surgery?”
Dr. Cratom nodded.
“Exactly.”
“And couldn’t he tell? I mean, couldn’t he tell that his forehead wasn’t thinner or whatever?”
“I mean, any normal person would. But he’s not normal; he’s whacked out of his mind. Came to my house, begged for drugs. I just wanted him out of my life, don’t want anything to do with him. That’s why I did the ‘surgery.’”
Drake frowned.
“So, you did it for free, did you? Decided, out of the goodness of your heart, to fake a surgery to make this poor schlep feel better.”
Dr. Cratom looked at the ground by his feet.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
The vet’s eyes shot up. They were blazing now—Drake had touched a nerve.
“You don’t fucking get it, do you? This guy, he’s unhinged. Obsessed with social media, just an absolute narcissist nut case. Trust me, I’ve come across some sketchy characters in my time, but this guy… he’s different. God only knows what he’s capable of.”
“Like strangling a cat?”
Everything that Dr. Cratom had said up to this point was predictable. His next comment, however, was anything but.
“I was thinking about something worse.”
Drake was taken aback by the man’s tone as much as his words. He cleared his throat before addressing the vet again.
“What’s his name?”
“Tobin. Tobin Tomlin,” Dr. Cratom replied without hesitation.
“You have an address for him?”
“Over there, check my desk.”
Drake looked to Leroy, who immediately made his way to Dr. Cratom’s desk. He swiped some papers around, then opened a drawer and reached inside. After a minute of searching, he shrugged and came up empty.
“Second drawer, the locked one. It’s the small key on the ring you took from me,” Dr. Cratom clarified.
Drake pulled the keys from his pocket and threw them at Leroy. He caught them and then turned his attention back to the vet’s desk.
“You’re-you’re going to let me go, right? I mean, you let me go, and I don’t tell anybody what happened here.”
Drake guffawed.
“You won’t tell on us?”
Dr. Cratom’s bravado dissipated.
“Yeah, I mean, you don’t say anything about me, and I don’t say anything about you.”
Drake wanted nothing more than to slap the guy around a little, but Dr. Cratom was right. If Dunbar caught wind—or, god forbid, someone less friendly in the NYPD—of him kidnapping another person?
Shit. Lock me up and throw away the key.
“Uh, Drake?”
Drake glanced up. Leroy was holding a stack of files in his hands.
“You have to be shitting me. Are you going to tell me that these are all fake surgeries?”
Once again, Dr. Cratom looked away.
“No, not all. Some… the more complicated ones. Rhinoplasty, that sort of thing. But others, I-I-I do some of the others, eye lifts. Botox. Fix up the occasional bullet wound.”
Drake was appalled by the man’s attitude. He actually sounded proud of his backroom surgery clinic.
“You make me sick.”
“I won’t say anything,” the vet suddenly muttered under his breath.
“Found it—Tobin Tomlin’s address,” Leroy proclaimed.
Drake kept his eyes locked on Dr. Cratom.
“Sure, I won’t say anything, but you’re not going to do anything; no more surgeries, at least not on humans. I don’t give a fuck what they offer you or what they threaten you with. If I find out you’ve been performing any more surgeries, I’ll come back here, with my man Leroy, and he’s going to break more than just your jaw. Do you understand me?”
Dr. Cratom looked none too pleased about this, but he nodded.
For Drake, this wasn’t good enough.
“Say it.”
“I won’t perform any surgeries.”
“Louder.”
Dr. Cratom scowled.
“No more fucking surgeries—I won’t do any more. I swear.”
Drake squeezed the man’s shoulder hard and said, “Good.”
With that, he gestured to Leroy, who now only held a single file in his hand.
“Let’s go.”
They had just entered the hallway leading to the back door when Dr. Cratom cried out.
“Hey! Hey! Untie me! Hey! Yo! You can’t leave me here like this! Hey!”
Chapter 55
The butcher’s knife was for show; it was dull to begin with and after just a few hacks it was practically unusable. That’s why Chad had the chef’s knife as a backup.
By this time, Kenneth was long dead. Blood still slowly leaked from his many wounds, but it no longer pumped and sprayed as it once had. It was messy, hard work, but Chad was nothing if not determined. He even managed to ham it up a little for the camera as he dismembered his roommate’s body.
“Say hi to the camera, Kenneth,” he sang while waving the man’s disembodied hand. Then he laughed.
Copious amounts of sweat mixed with the thick fluid that leaked from his forehead incision coated Chad’s face in a sheen that was highly reflective.
But not even this could stop him.
As with most things, practice made not for perfection but ease of work.
Once he’d figured out how to remove Kenneth’s first arm, the other took about half as long. But even as he became more comfortable wielding the knife, the thing that really slowed Chad down was all the blood. When he first started it was slippery, but now that a considerable amount of time had passed, it was becoming gummy. Both conditions generated their own sets of challenges.
He even tried to clean some of it up as he went, but after fully saturating three towels, Chad just gave up. There was just so much of it.
And time was of the essence.
Chad found a dozen or so thick contractor bags under the sink and put the towels in one of them. Then a thought occurred to him. The veracity of his grin reinstated, he hurried
to Kenneth’s room and rummaged around until he found three large boxes full of noodle bowls. He dumped their contents onto the floor and returned to the kitchen.
There, after lining the boxes with garbage bags, Chad addressed Kenneth’s still warm corpse. Reinvigorated from the short rest, he turned his attention to the man’s left foot. Somehow, it was easier to remove than his arm. The tendons proved the most difficult, what with his waning strength and the gradual dulling of the knife. But he managed.
Kenneth’s head was perhaps the simplest to remove of all body parts. The knife slid easily through the soft skin beneath his chin and it only took a strong push to cut between his cervical vertebrae. After some contemplation, he put a foot in one box, an arm in another, and Kenneth’s head in the third. Chad twisted and tied the individual garbage bags closed, and then, using packing tape he found in one of the cupboards, sealed them all up tight. Just to make sure that there were no leaks, he doubled up on the tape.
“Just some gifts for some of my adoring fans,” he said to the camera.
He stacked the boxes by the door then grabbed his cell phone and surveyed what was left of Kenneth.
“All right fans, this will be my last video for a while. But not my last ever. That’s a promise! Chaddites unite!”
Chad turned the camera on himself one last time, then ended the video. The live stream had long since been reported and cut off, but it had all recorded just fine. He immediately uploaded his masterpiece to 8chan, tagging it with links to his other three videos. This was a risky maneuver as it provided more evidence for amateur Internet sleuths to figure out his identity, but he deemed it a worthy hazard.
Chad was exhausted now, but he still had more work to do. As he stared down at the carnage on the family room floor, however, a bout of nausea unexpectedly struck him.
No, not now. Don’t pussy out now, Chad.
He felt a pang of sadness as he pulled down the thick black curtain and wrapped it around Kenneth’s torso. He and that fabric had been through a lot together, and it had served him well.
Almost Infamous (Detective Damien Drake Book 9) Page 19
