The relentless water had created a natural channel that gently flowed down her body’s natural contours and drifted down what was left of her breasts and into a pool that lay just above her bellybutton. The water had then long ago overflowed from this pool and seeped into the blood soaked pools that had accumulated below her body. The stony shoreline underneath her body her had many cracks, crevices and holes and all of which had long ago filled up with this bloody mixture that had long since ceased pumping its life essence around her body. He suspected that the majority of her absent blood was now deep within the murky depths of Lake Erie, further adding to the lakes aptly named name. Merlyo could understand the disturbed fisherman’s creative description that O’Donnell had kindly reiterated back to him only a few moments ago because she was almost unrecognisable as a human being.
The victim had both her arms and lower legs removed with the use of an extremely sharp implement because of the precise cut marks that cross crossed the numerous dismemberment wounds. The head however had been removed by another method entirely, something more brutish in nature judging by the body’s insides that lay chaotically around her neck area and almost gave the impression that it had been ripped cleanly off! This made no sense to the veteran detective as he rubbed his eyes in agitation, confirming his suspicion that he required more sleep because such bizarre deductions where the result of an obviously unclear mind. He knew that organised gangland killings of similar nature to this had occurred before whereby the head would be chopped off to ensure non identification but this one felt different not only because of her youth but also because of the brutish manner of decapitation. It looked as though her head had been ripped off as opposed to cut off but he could not be sure about this and decided to let the coroner confirm his suspicion about this peculiar act of unfamiliar violence.
He then let his vision clear as he looked again upon the tragic sight before him and alarming noticed that he had another emotionally charged reaction towards this young woman, that of immense sadness. The alarmingly strong and recognisable feeling then saturated his troubled mind as he thought of her loss of innocence and loss of a fledgling life that may have been filed with much promise. This unknown yet fleeting life had been so cruelly taken away from her in such an awfully violent manner that he hoped that she did not suffer before her untimely end. This unprecedented emotional response had caught him by surprise because he had seen many violent homicide victims before and in many different locations but he had never had such an emotional charged reaction like this before. This unexpected revelation was alarming to him and disappointing because it was something that should happen to a rookie detective and not a well versed and experienced veteran such as himself.
He then attempted to push this irrational emotional response to one side but could not help but speculate upon the once beautiful young lady whom now lay before him. His warm yet sad thoughts of the unknown woman then turned to alarm as he noticed the distinctive tell-tale signs of prolonged torture due to the recognisable bruising markings of restraints around her lower neck and upper thighs area. He then hastily took out his notepad and pen and wrote down his detailed observations under the protection of his hat which conventionality deflected the rain drizzle and offered him a sanctuary within this maelstrom of horror. He speculated upon numerous theories that where swirling around within his mind and theorized that she was probably killed by a jealous lover or pimp due to the personal nature of the prolonged killing, instantly eliminating any gangland related turf vendetta scenario that may have been speculating.
The pondering detective soon however changed his mind as he thought about the furiously battling Italian, Jewish and Irish mobs that literally owned Cleveland because it had all the hallmarks of a professional hit but something about it silently spoke to him and pulled him back towards his original assumption. Even if it was a professional hit, whomever ordered it wanted to make this young woman suffer and so regardless of the scenario it was still a personal crime which spoke volumes about the heartless individual whom perpetrated this gruesome act. Whilst he ponderingly looked at her porcelain body he had initially assumed that she may have been a young prostitute however she appeared to be generally well-nourished and had no drug use marks upon her near perfect skin. Her white skin was immaculate, clean and austere even and she had a strange seductiveness that beckoned to a somewhat confused detective as he felt her aura slowly attempting to consume him.
He closed his eyes to gather his chaotic thoughts and stop his wild flights of fancy and irrational emotions as he slowly looked up into the sky in order to let the rain gently shower his face and wash away his numerous anxieties. The predictable calming effect was instantaneous and he then took off his hat and ran his fingers through short dark hair, unintentionally allowing himself to finally be seen again by the curiously on looking O’Donnell and Kilbane. The two officers silently watched on as he then rubbed his eyes before then slowly putting back on his trusty hat and he hoped that he would be rid of any such irrational emotions permanently, wanting to return only his analytical gaze back upon the tragic crime scene that now lay before him. The nearby turbulent lake waters then started to wash and bathe her already cleansed remains almost as if it wished to erase her from the disturbing spectacle that she had so unwittingly created upon the shoreline. It was as if the lake itself wished to drag her away deep into its uncharted and murky depths so that she could rest in peace and so that her soul could be freed from the purgatory torment that it now found itself trapped within.
Merlyo’s hat then almost blew off in the wind as he quickly grabbed it with his lightening quick reflexes and this had the unwanted effect of breaking his analytical chain of thought. He then noticed that the two irritating officers had now apparently lost interest in his covert activities and where finishing off cordoning off the area whilst talking to each other and battling the elements. A relieved Merlyo was pleasantly surprised because there incessant talking was breaking his chain of thought and probably the root cause of his irrational emotional response to the disturbing crime scene. He then turned his attentions back towards the body and looked for any identifying marks but none where apparent to him, not even a mole or birthmark but then he noticed that the body looked as though it had been thoroughly cleaned because he saw faint brush marks crisscrossing the skins surface.
The killer had gone to a lot of trouble to clean the young woman’s body after she was dead because the excessive force which was used to apply the brush was far too strong for someone to do it whilst they were still alive. The observant detective then noticed something curiously strange about her skin and moved his face ever closer to it and squinted. There was a slight discolouration upon her skin which was all but washed away except for underneath her protected body where it appeared to have survived the harsh elements of the bad weather. Her entire body appeared to have been saturated into some sort of reddish chemical liquid solution which had given the skin a strange and leathery texture feeling to it, which felt somewhat reminiscent of beacon after it had been cooked. As the inquisitive detective touched her skin with his finger he found his mind begin to flood with a barrage with numerous theories and speculations about the reddish tinged liquids meaning. He then eagerly noting down these observations and thoughts whilst the rain lashed down its fury upon him and made the usually mundane task of note taking that much more difficult. He then keenly noticed six long blonde hairs within the blood soaked and rippling pool underneath her remains as the rain effortlessly paraded them for his viewing pleasure. Upon seeing this curious sight he instantly thought of the beautiful blonde woman whom he had dated the previous evening and whom was still invisibly pulling upon his heart strings this morning.
She had been a new recruit at the police department and had come up quickly through the ranks, so quick in fact that there was talk that she was being helped by an unseen hand because she was already an officer and enjoying regular patrols within the heart of Cleveland. He had initially paid
her no attention, feeling that she was probably a little too self-absorbed and unenlightened because of her obvious physical attractiveness which was evident to all. These unbecomingly negative preconceptions about her where taken far too hastily on his part and as he then got to know her personality better he really took to her, finding himself slowly falling for her as time progressed. It had taken him an unusually long amount of time to ask her out on a date because he had tended to avoid such romances within the workplace, having always been advised by his partner to avoid such relationships because they could only end in disappointment. After the unfortunate events of last night’s ill-timed approach at romance he suspected that she would never want anything more to do with him again and thus he could already hear his partner gloating about his relationships predictable failure.
Last night had begun perfectly because he had taken her to go watch the new Henry Hull horror movie called Werewolf of London which told the story of a botanist whom was bitten by a wolf in Tibet whilst searching for a rare plant, only to return to London to feed on the living during the full moon. He knew that she was a fan of both Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein and they both had loved the film’s dark and sinister overtones, to which she had spent the evening discussing and replaying the events over and over again. Her name was Poppy Rose Valentine and her stunning name was only matched by her beauty and unlike many other women, she had always preferred the darker and more intense movies because she felt that they represented life more realistically rather than other films genres. He secretly appreciated this rather unique and pleasantly different aspect of her unusual personality which many other women would consider almost unwomanly in this day and age.
After they had finished watching this horror movie they had then gone out for dinner at his favourite Hungarian restaurant which was conveniently located just down the road, having already maliciously pre-planned the evening’s events days prior to them actually occurring. His strong feelings and ultimately his physical intentions for the evening where not to be reciprocated by her which was unfortunate, especially because he was feeling low due to the collapse of an important investigation that he had recently been working on. The evening had ended badly because he had tried in vain to have her come back to his place after the dinner, in order to hopefully have a few more red wines but she knew what his intensions where and did not wish to end the night being physical. They had only been seeing each other for a few months now but last night he was desperate to make love to her and physically show her how he emotionally felt about her, having fantasized about this specific encounter on numerous occasions before. This promising evening had unfortunately ended on a sour note because of his own unacceptable behaviour when she rebuffed his advances which resulted in him shouting at her before he dropped her back off at her home.
Lightening overhead suddenly brought the lonesome detective back into the present as water frantically lapped up against the victim’s torso, bringing with it the occasional gift of dead seaweed and colourful garbage from the nearby amusement park. He did not understand why seeing this particular macabre murder had affected him on such a deeply emotional level and speculated that it must have been due to last night’s troubling experience in combination with his own reluctance to accept what his heart was telling him, that he was in love with Poppy. With this revelation he simply closed his eyes and attempted to once again clear his fragmented mind before he then looked up into the turbulent sky above and silently pleaded for answers to both solve this gruesome crime and solve the enigma of his achingly lonely heart.
The dark clouds seemed to suddenly pick up intensity and appeared to swirl above the detective and his murder victim whilst they created numerous distorted facial images that only a truly troubled mind could see. The unrelenting icy wind that blew in from the turbulent lake’s centre then also picked up its speed and ferocity as the concerned Merlyo then desperately attempted to consider his limited options as to how to conceal the torso from these potentially harmful elements. He did not wish to move the torso but felt that it was necessary or else the victim maybe washed away back out into the unseen depths of Lake Erie and so he then tried to pull the torso further up the rocky shoreline. As he struggled with the surprisingly heavy torso he shouted out for the two unseen officers to help him but they were not anywhere to be seen and neither was LaGassie whom had also apparently made a quick exit upon seeing the storm front appear.
The struggling detective then stopped as he shockingly saw the unknown reddish chemical liquid that had been blissfully concealed under the victim now all over his arms. The startled Merlyo instantly reeled back in fear whilst dropping the torso, angered at himself over his incompetence at trying to move the valuable evidence and now paying the price for his overzealous stupidity. As he frantically looked around for a solution he suddenly noticed a large and partially submerged thickly covered tree branch that had conveniently floated here a while ago and was presumably a victim of a previous storm. He struggled as he frantically lifted the heavy tree branch out of the concealing water and hastily placed it upon the nearby torso, desiring to keep her precious body to hopefully reveal its hidden secrets to him at another time. He then hesitantly jumped up onto the rocky shoreline which lay above the torso and looked at his newly acquired reddish slime that now covered his arms, cursed his bad luck at his unintentional systematic destruction of this beloved clothes.
To add further insult to injury, his hat was then cruelly snatched away from his head by the pervasive icy winds and he watched helplessly as it did a mesmerizingly chaotic dance above the lakes choppy water. After a few moments it inevitably succumb to gravity’s will and fell into the calmer water depths that lay deep below the turbulent lake’s surface. The dishevelled and defeated detective dejectedly stood there within the tempest of the surrounding storm and rolled his eyes at his misfortune, convinced that the very gods where now against him since his bad behaviour during his date the previous night. He then reluctantly took one last look at the poor young woman’s torso and felt guilty about leaving her alone there by the desolate shoreline but promised her that he would find whomever was responsible for her tragedy.
He once again looked around for the elusive O’Donnell, Kilbane and LaGassie but could not see them in the turbulent weather and decided that it would be best for him to simply go back the way he had come, knowing that the full force of the tempest was now upon him. He then hastily retraced his footsteps back across the unruly foliage and back towards his awaiting 1932 black Ford de lux automobile that had been within his possession for many years now. It silently awaited him within a grassy field by an unused dirt road which was concealed by many trees and was testament to the difficulty in finding this secluded shoreline location. He had decided that he would simply wait awhile in his Ford for the bad weather to dissipate and perhaps even go home after that because he felt the urge to leave this troubling location which had so deliberately shaken his nerves to the core. As he trudged through the remaining tree covered foliage that separated himself from his Ford, he pulled-up his collar so as to hide his true feelings which were now plainly evident upon his disturbed face for all to see.
Just before he reached the sanctuary of his Ford’s familiar interior he saw the distinctively welcoming sight of detectives Orley May and Emil Musil as there Cleveland police wagon rumbled on by the dirt road. It then slowed down in the unseen rainy distance before then hastily reversing as the twin occupants had only seen the detective’s recognisably motionless Ford at the last possible second. As the wagon slowed Merlyo went to greet them and saw there familiar faces staring back at him with some concern as they actively analysed his unusually dishevelled looking appearance. May was a middle aged man with a receding hairline and a distinctive moustache that everyone always made fun of back in the office. He always wore the same colour black suit and tie along with a freshly pressed white shirt which gave him the appearance of a mortician rather than a detective. Wher
eas his younger partner Musil was almost a carbon copy of the older May, even down to the moustache which many people found strangely odd but humorous. Both detectives, unlike many of their colleagues within the crooked department, where not corrupt and where good decent men with a long history of united success.
Merlyo knew that they could question LaGassie rather than himself because he was not feeling up to it and so he immediately briefed them about his macabre find by the lakeshore before then informing them that he was feeling sick and wanted to go home. Both concerned detectives instantly agreed because they could see that he was not looking well at all and wished him all the best as they hastily left in there unsightly wagon and rumbled off down towards the lakeside and into the unseen beyond. Merlyo then quickly got into his trusty old Ford and was relieved to have escaped the surrounding bad weather which appeared to have suddenly gotten worse. He was happily content to be back with his predictably calm and sealed Ford as the rain and wind mercilessly assaulted it upon the grassy clearing. He then hastily opened up the glove compartment in search of some desperately needed cigarettes and a lighter to calm his troubled nerves but was instead greeted by two falling letters which were addressed to both the irritating officers whom where at the crime scene, O’Donnell and his subordinate Kilbane.
The Noir Evil Page 2
