The Baron Blasko Mysteries (Book 3): Claws

by Howe, A. E.

  “No.”

  “A girlfriend perhaps?”

  “Not at the moment. I don’t know—” Charlie stopped when he saw Blasko reach under a man’s coat on the hall tree and pull out a scarf. A woman’s scarf. Blasko sniffed it.

  “Whose scarf is this?” Blasko said, holding it toward Charlie, who looked like a fish lying on the dock. “I think Mr. Handlin might recognize this scarf,” Blasko finished with a wicked smile that even Bobby found unnerving.

  In the blink of an eye, Charlie Parsons’s face told them he’d surrendered.

  “Yes, the scarf belongs to Maddie.”

  “Madilyn Handlin?” Bobby pressed.

  “Yes, yes,” Charlie blurted, then began to cry.

  “You were having an affair with Mrs. Handlin.” Bobby made it a statement and Charlie, still crying, nodded his head.

  “I was in love… We were in love with each other,” Charlie managed to say as he tried to get his sobbing under control.

  “Maybe she rejected you.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t like that.”

  “She was happily married.”

  “Not hardly.”

  “So you went there with the intention to kill her husband?”

  “No, I didn’t go there at all.”

  A car came roaring down the road and they heard it bump over the curb outside.

  “Find out who that is,” Bobby said to Blasko, who was already moving toward the door. Before he got there, boots pounded on the concrete outside. Blasko opened the door to a frantic deputy whose hand was raised, ready to knock.

  “Where’s Tucker? We’ve been looking all over town for him!” the man yelled, trying to look past Blasko into the house.

  “Olson, what’s going on?” Bobby said, coming to the door.

  “It’s a bloody mess. Something awful. You got to come now,” Deputy Olson spat out.

  “Settle down. What’s going on?”

  “There’s been another attack. Out at the Chester place.” Olson was shifting from foot to foot like he was running in place. “You got to see it.”

  “Okay,” Bobby said as Blasko pushed past him on his way to the car. Bobby flashed a look back at Charlie Parsons to let him know the interview wasn’t over, then he followed the others out the door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They followed Deputy Olson’s truck at breakneck speed through the streets of Sumter and then across the washboard roads of the county until they pulled up into the driveway of the Chesters’ farmhouse. Cars and trucks were parked all around the yard, while men with guns and lanterns wandered about between them.

  “Damn it, Paige, get everyone off the property!” Bobby yelled when he saw Willard Paige standing on the front porch. Paige grumbled, but began talking to the men and getting them to move their vehicles.

  As Bobby walked up onto the porch, a part-time deputy came out of the house carrying a biscuit.

  “Where’d you get that?” Bobby growled.

  “There’s a basket full of them in the kitchen.”

  “Put it back where you found it. This is a crime scene, for Pete’s sake! Ignoramus.” This last comment was muttered after the man had gone back into the house. “Everyone out of the house!” Bobby shouted.

  A stream of half a dozen people walked past Bobby and Blasko. Some were part-time deputies while others were just curious neighbors. Bobby noted that none of them were Taylors or Murphys.

  When the biscuit thief came out looking chastised, Bobby grabbed his arm. “Has anyone told Colonel Etheridge about this?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “If you think you can get there without stopping for more food, go and tell him about this and drive him back here if he wants you to.”

  “Sure, boss,” the man said, hustling out to his car.

  “And one of you dunderheads go and get the doc… Also Emmett Wolfe, and tell him to bring his camera,” Bobby yelled to the men who were now milling about by the road.

  With the yard and the house finally cleared, Bobby and Blasko began to walk through the scene. Downstairs, everything appeared normal. The kitchen looked like it was in between lunch and dinner. There were dishes left to dry by the sink, biscuits that looked freshly made on the table and a pot of stew still warm on the back of the stove.

  But before they even started up the stairs, they noticed the blood stains on the steps.

  “It’s going to be impossible to tell how much blood was tracked by our killer and what was left by all the knuckleheads traipsing through the house,” Bobby grumbled.

  For Blasko, the smell of blood was overwhelming. Even though he had fed recently, the craving was still strong. The warm iron scent of new blood only intensified his thirst.

  “What in the name of—” Bobby said when he had gone far enough up the staircase to see the second floor. Blasko saw him put his hand up to his mouth to stifle his gag reflex, but was impressed when Bobby continued up the stairs.

  “Who… What would do this?” Bobby mumbled to himself.

  Blasko stood beside him at the top of the stairs and looked at the bloody chaos around them. Mrs. Chester was sprawled in the hallway outside Molly’s room. Her internal organs were strewn around the walls, floor and doorway. There were claw marks across her face and chest.

  “Savaged,” Blasko said. The sight of the poor woman tempered his own bloodlust. When he was younger, his empathy for the dead wouldn’t have been enough to override his need for blood. Back then, he might have fallen to his knees and drank from the rivulets flowing across the floor. The image caused a wave of self-loathing for his behavior in those early days of his affliction.

  “This is fresh,” Bobby said as he looked at the blood still trickling off of Mrs. Chester’s body.

  There was just room for them to make their way around the fallen woman without stepping in any pools of blood. The scene in Molly’s bedroom was even more horrific. The walls were literally sprayed with blood. Mr. Chester had been torn apart as though he’d been drawn and quartered.

  “Oh, man,” Bobby said, and turned and closed his eyes. He took half a dozen long, deep breaths.

  “Impressive,” Blasko said as he looked at the carnage.

  “Damn it!” Bobby said, turning back to the room. “Where’s the girl?” He looked left and right, trying to find some trace of her before entering the room and looking in the corner beside the bed where they’d found her crouched down the day he and Josephine had visited. There was no sign of her.

  Blasko could discern three distinct blood smells in the room. “A third person was injured in this room. Her blood is here. A fair amount of it.”

  “How the hell can you tell one puddle of blood from another?”

  “You’ll have to trust me,” Blasko said, following the scent to the bed. “The blood on the bed belongs to the girl.”

  The comforter was soaked with blood.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Bobby said sadly.

  “There is something else here,” Blasko said, kneeling down.

  On the floor beside the bed was a piece of skin that appeared to have been cut from someone. It was roughly eight inches in diameter with a red scar in the middle.

  “This just gets better and better,” Bobby said sarcastically. “What is that?”

  Blasko peered closely at it, careful not to disturb the evidence before Emmett had a chance to photograph it. “A piece of skin with some type of scar or tattoo,” he said with a detachment born of many battlefields.

  “Gruesome. Was it ripped off?”

  “I think it was cut off with that.” Blasko pointed to a butcher knife with a nine-inch blade half hidden under the bed. The knife was covered in blood and pieces of tissue.

  “What the hell happened in here? And where is the poor girl?” Bobby asked, walking over to the window that had previously been boarded over, but was now shattered with pieces of board scattered on the floor. “Whatever was in here left through this window. It must have taken the girl wi
th it. Let’s leave this for Wolfe to document. I need to get some of these goons searching for the girl.”

  Blasko took another look around the room, wondering what ghastly narrative had played out there.

  Bobby organized a few of the more trustworthy onlookers into a search party and put Paige in charge.

  “You understand that the girl could be lying out in the woods bleeding to death. Be quiet and listen for any sounds. Also, you men saw what this killer did. Be careful, but don’t shoot each other,” Bobby advised the group. There was a lot of nodding as the men solemnly spread out to look for Molly.

  Blasko watched them while sniffing the air, trying to get a scent of the killer. He could smell it and, as with the Taylor boy, the trail led down toward the creek. Even in animal form, the creature had enough sense to head for water to wash off. Blasko didn’t see the point in following the trail to another dead end. Besides, several of the men were headed that way.

  Two more cars roared up to the house. One of them carried Colonel Etheridge and the other was Dr. McGuire.

  “What’s going on?” Etheridge said, walking over to Blasko and Bobby.

  “Two people were slaughtered and their daughter is missing,” Bobby told him.

  “Didn’t you say that the girl witnessed the attack on the Seth Taylor?”

  “That’s what she told us,” Bobby said.

  “So maybe the murderer came back for her. Either she was the original target and Taylor got in the way, or the killer wanted to eliminate a witness to his first murder,” Etheridge said.

  “Both are possibilities,” Bobby agreed.

  “The fact that he took the girl would indicate that it was the former. If she’d just been a witness that he wanted to eliminate, then he would have killed her and been gone,” Blasko pointed out.

  “Good point,” Etheridge said and turned to Bobby. “Have you initiated a search?”

  “I’ve got Paige heading up a group of men working out from the house,” he said and received an approving nod from Etheridge.

  The doctor walked up next to them.

  “You won’t need your bag,” Bobby told him. “The Chesters are in pieces. I just wanted you to see them as they are for the inquest.” Dr. McGuire also served as the county coroner.

  “There is one thing you should pay particular attention to,” Blasko interjected. “There is a piece of skin lying by the bed that has been cut off of someone. Your opinion would be valuable.”

  “He’s got a point. See if it came from either of the two victims upstairs,” Bobby instructed the doctor.

  “This is quite the circus,” said a voice from behind them. Everyone turned to see Emmett Wolfe approaching.

  “Emmett,” Colonel Etheridge said, sticking out his hand.

  “Colonel. Rumor has it that you’re the new sheriff in town.”

  “Unconfirmed,” Etheridge said.

  “Another attack?” Emmett asked.

  “Two dead. And the details on this one need to be kept quiet if you want to keep your role as our photographer of record,” Bobby said.

  “You know I can be counted on. I’ve never printed anything about a murder scene without permission.”

  “This one’s worse than most,” Bobby said.

  “I’ll need assistance with my equipment.”

  “Take any one of those boys,” Bobby said, pointing to three part-timers that he had standing at the front fence, keeping everyone back. The number of gawkers was increasing as word spread about the attacks.

  “I’ll go in with you too,” Etheridge offered.

  After they’d gone in the house, Bobby pulled Blasko to the side. “Give me your thoughts.”

  “There are no signs of forced entry and the rest of the house was undisturbed. That seems curious,” Blasko said with raised eyebrows.

  Bobby thought about this. “I see what you mean. A crazed beast breaks in, goes upstairs to get the girl, parents go to protect her and are killed. Monster grabs girl and escapes by crashing through the window. Why wouldn’t there be more evidence downstairs? The door was open, or at least unlocked. Most doors are out here, though not so much since the attacks. Plus, Mr. Chester was probably taking extra precautions after Josephine and I came by uninvited.”

  “Let’s be clear. We’re talking about a werewolf. He has the power to change, perhaps at will. Maybe he changed after he was in the house. He might even be someone who the Chesters trusted, and they let him into the house. Once inside, he could have morphed into the monster we saw the other night. Then killed the parents and absconded with the girl.” Blasko paused. “Through the window… I want to go back inside and check the window.”

  Dr. McGuire came back onto the porch. “The deaths happened about two hours ago. Who discovered the bodies?”

  “A friend of Mrs. Chester’s. They were supposed to ride to church together. When the Chesters didn’t come by her place, she walked over here. Lives about a mile down the road. According to Paige, the woman ran all the way home. Come to think of it, you might want to check in on her. She may be in shock,” Bobby said.

  “I’ll do that. I collected the piece of skin and I’ll examine it at my office. Nothing more I can do here. Have Connelly lay the bodies out at his place. I’ll come over there to do the autopsies. When I piece them together, I’ll be able to say definitively if the piece of skin came from either one of them. If I’d’ve known how many autopsies I was going to have to do for the county, I’d have insisted on being paid by the body rather than take a salary,” Dr. McGuire grumbled and headed back to his car.

  “I’m going to make sure Paige is on top of the search for Molly,” Bobby said. “Not that I have much hope she’s alive.”

  “He took her rather than tearing her apart, so there’s still hope,” Blasko assured him.

  Once Bobby had gone, Blasko went back into the house. Emmett was still photographing the bloody smears on the stairs. Blasko carefully went around him and worked at avoiding contact with any evidence as he made his way back to Molly’s room.

  Etheridge was standing in the middle of the room with his eyes closed.

  “Wait one minute,” he said without opening his eyes. He turned his head slightly, then opened his eyes. Blasko was fascinated as he watched the man count to thirty while staring at one corner of the room. When he reached thirty, he closed his eyes again. Another minute passed, after which Etheridge opened his eyes and turned.

  “Oh, it’s you, Baron. I was employing a technique that a fellow in Africa taught me. Quite effective, really. You take mental pictures of the room. By concentrating for thirty seconds on a particular section of the scene, it allows you to really see the details. After which, you close your eyes and think about what you’ve seen for a full minute or so. That embeds the memory and again forces you to think about the items you saw in that one snapshot.”

  “Fascinating,” Blasko said and meant it. “I wanted to take a closer look at the broken window.”

  He walked to the window with Etheridge looking over his shoulder. “We’re thinking that the beast took the daughter and left through this window,” Blasko said, looking at the busted glass and wood.

  The window was a double-sash affair. While all the glass in the window was cracked or broken, it was clear that the creature had gone out through the bottom part. There were just a few jagged pieces of glass stuck in the frame, with smears of blood on the glass. Blasko looked closely and saw some hairs that looked like they might have come from Molly. There were other hairs as well, shorter and more animal-like.

  “Interesting,” Etheridge said.

  Blasko sniffed the blood and hairs. He could only smell one type of blood. It came from the same person whose blood covered the bed. As he knew it didn’t belong to either of the adult Chesters, he assumed it could only be Molly’s.

  Blasko looked at the smashed window and put his upper body carefully through the hole. He could smell and see blood on the tin roof of the front porch where the beast must ha
ve landed after jumping from the window. Satisfied, he pulled his head back into the room.

  “Not a very large opening to jump through carrying a woman,” Etheridge observed.

  “Exactly, Colonel.”

  “Perhaps the girl escaped down the stairs while her parents were fighting with the beast. Then it broke free and jumped out of the window.”

  “There is blood on the staircase,” Blasko agreed. “I’m going to look around outside.”

  He left Etheridge to take more mental pictures. Emmett was on the landing, photographing what was left of Mrs. Chester. Blasko made his way around the man and back down the stairs. Through the front windows, he could see lights moving around in the darkness a hundred yards from the house as the men searched for any signs of Molly.

  He went onto the front porch and tried to find the spot where the beast had landed after coming off of the roof.

  “Curses!” he muttered at the dozens of footprints in front of the house. He wasn’t even sure why he was interested in where the creature had landed. He already knew the direction it had taken away from the farmhouse. Aha! Think backward, he told himself.

  Blasko drew a mental line from the trail that he had smelled earlier back to the front of the house. There he found a deep impression where one of the beast’s feet had landed in the soft earth.

  An hour later, he was watching Etheridge pour plaster over the print. Bobby had assembled the necessary materials and had been ready to take the cast when the colonel had offered to take over. It turned out that collecting prints in Africa had been one of his many hobbies.

  “Better than I could have done,” Bobby admitted when the colonel had finished.

  “It’s a skill that improves with practice,” Etheridge said. “Except for it being a right foot rather than a left, I’d say that, to my eye, this print looks similar to the one you collected at the creek.”

  “I agree. Though I don’t know what good collecting prints is going to be,” Bobby said.