“Sorry about asking you to meet me in here today,” she said, snapping off her gloves and depositing them in the wastebasket by the head of the table.
“Not a problem,” Reed said, shaking his head. Compared to what he’d seen the last few nights, the lab seemed downright tame. “I imagine you’re getting behind with all these rush jobs we keep sending your way.”
“True,” Solomon said, the statement coming out flat and direct, “but that’s not why I asked you to meet me here. I think there’s something else you should see.”
She motioned with a finger for him to follow her, walking across the room to a row of tables matching the one being used for the autopsy nearby. The first three in the line sat empty, nothing but bare polished steel.
On the third was an oversized surgical towel, the lower half of three different arms laid out in a line.
The trio ranged in size and shape, each one starting a couple inches below the elbow. They were positioned palm down on the towel, their chalky skin seeming extra pale beneath the overhead glare.
It took only a moment for Reed to identify all three, moving backwards in chronological order.
“All the general stuff is in the file,” Solomon said. “A copy is in my office for you when you go.”
She said it in a manner that indicated it was more of the same, the cause of death and weapon consistent with the previous nights.
“But this I thought you might want to see. It may be nothing more than a complete fluke, but it might not be,” Solomon said, starting with the arm of Durell.
She turned it over, pointing at the pale underbelly. “Anything jump out at you there?”
The lower part of the arm had been cut clean from the upper half with a single slice, as with the prior victims, the nub ends of the ulna and radius bones visible in the center of the pink flesh.
Unlike the others though, a second cut had been inserted in the flesh just before the severed end, a diagonal slash that removed most of the skin and meat clear to the bone.
“Huh,” Reed managed, looking at the wound, trying to make sense of it. “Did the first one not go clear through?”
“Oh, no,” Solomon said. “It more than finished the job. This one was for pure cosmetics.”
“Cosmetics?” Reed heard himself ask before even realizing it, a look of confusion on his face.
“Yes,” Solomon said, her voice betraying nothing. “Like the others, this limb was removed posthumously. However, I think something happened that made him miss his target.”
There was a slight trace of satisfaction that crossed Solomon’s face, the tiniest indication that she was enjoying having the upper hand, drawing out her find. For a moment Reed contemplated prompting her to jump ahead to the end but decided against it, choosing to let her have it.
She was too professional to prolong things forever. She also worked underground and needed the chance at recognition whenever it presented itself.
Reed knew the feeling.
Leaving the arm of Durell palm up, Solomon moved on, turning over the arm of Wright.
“We didn’t pick it up yesterday because Wright’s pit bull chewed away so much of the meat around the lower arm that there was nothing left to see.”
The three inches beneath the severed end had been chewed away to almost nothing, the tissue left behind a gelatinous mess that resembled the last bit of meat on a ham bone. Dirt and dried saliva coated everything, the end result of a meal interrupted.
“But when I took a look at Mr. Mentor’s arm, it made sense,” Solomon said. She flipped the third hand over with a bit of a flourish and stepped aside, allowing Reed to move forward and take a closer look.
The cut had been made at a diagonal angle, the weapon sheering the skin in a clean line.
Sticking out the bottom of it was a tattoo, the lower half of it visible.
“Is that...?” Reed asked, feeling his pulse tick upward, sweat flushing his back despite the cool temperatures in the room. He moved forward and twisted his body for a better view, the black ink plain against the pale skin.
“I don’t know what it is,” Solomon said, “but I think it might be the link between your victims. The killer seems to be making a point of crossing out that image, whatever it may be.”
For three days the victims had been coming in so fast, Reed had not had the time to work proper victimology on them. Now, he might not need to, the killer finally tipping his hand.
All moisture was gone from Reed’s mouth as he stared at the image, quite certain he couldn’t remember seeing it before, though with only half of it present there was no way to be sure.
“We have the other half on ice in here, right?” Reed asked without looking over at Solomon.
“Already took pictures,” Solomon said, her voice back to normal, her moment of triumph gone. “They’re in the file on my desk. Door is unlocked.”
Chapter Thirty
The Boat Man felt naked.
Despite having spent the previous months observing from afar, unarmed in his pursuits, since tasting the pleasure of carrying the sword with him he had grown attached to having it on hand. It served both as a sense of power, feeding off the fear of those who saw him with it, and as a reminder for why he was out here.
There were only a few left to go, and he needed that reminder now more than ever. He craved that connection, both to the power and to the past.
“Get you anything else?” the waitress asked as she stopped at his table, one hand pressed into her hip, the other holding a pitcher of coffee at shoulder level. Her gaze bore into him as she asked, almost daring him to say yes, her body language already leaning towards the next table in line.
“No, thanks,” the Boat Man said, forcing a nervous smile into place. He looked down at the last smears of a slice of cherry cheesecake on his plate, the final dregs of coffee in his mug.
Both had been dreadful, the mere thought of forcing any more down repulsive.
“Just the check, please.”
The waitress nodded, seeming to approve of his choice, turning on the ball of her foot, stringy blonde hair spinning around behind her. The Boat Man waited until she was gone before leaning back in the booth, his attention fixed on the vacant gas station across the street.
The few other cars that had congregated there for the evening left about a half hour before, leaving the same two as the last to leave, just as they were every night. A bulge of bile rose in the back of the Boat Man’s throat as he sat and stared at them, their respective owners leaning against the front hoods, self-assuredness rolling off of them.
After everything that had occurred, the destruction that he had wrought, these two should be concerned at the least, scared shitless at worst. They had to have figured out what was happening, that it was only a matter of time before their turn came due.
The fact that they must have known and still didn’t seem to care galled the Boat Man, his knuckles showing white as he clenched his fist. The way they were behaving meant they either didn’t respect him or were trying to bait him, both of which would be grave errors on their part.
“I’ll be your cashier whenever you’re ready,” the waitress said, slapping the check down on his table without breaking stride.
The Boat Man looked over as she passed, catching nothing more than the clicking of heels and the whiff of Aqua Net.
He glanced down once at the total circled at the bottom without moving to pull it close or extract his wallet. Instead he shifted his attention back to the window, watching the pair as they lounged, both taking the occasional pull from bottles wrapped in brown paper.
Had Mason Durell’s body not given one last gasp of life, had his corpse not contorted itself at the most inopportune moment, he would now be crouched low in the shadows across the street. The young men, both of them, would be such easy targets he would be on them and gone before either even knew what happened.
Nothing more than a pair of chalk outlines on the sidewalk, two more chapters in a v
ow fulfilled.
The thought brought a smile to the Boat Man’s face as he stared, every detail about them both, the scene, the cars they drove, already committed to memory. For the first time all night he almost appreciated what had happened to his sword, forcing him to slow down, to enjoy what he had accomplished.
For three nights in a row he had terrorized the streets of The Bottoms and nobody, from the cops to his targets, had the slightest idea who or what they were looking for. He had done such a masterful job that even now many believed he didn’t exist, the next pair on his list leaving themselves exposed in the open.
Doing the math in his head, the Boat Man counted out the money for the bill, adding exactly twenty percent to it. The food and the service had both been abysmal, but it was imperative that nobody remember a single thing about him, even something as innocuous as a tip too far one direction or the other. It had been his first and last trip into the diner, there being no reason to make it memorable for a soul inside.
The Boat Man slid from the booth and stepped into the cold night air, giving one last look at the vacant station before turning away and walking off into the night. The smile returned to his face as he went, his body tingling with the sensation of impending action.
Enjoyment was never the goal, far from it in fact. Now that it was here though, it felt wrong to turn away.
She would have wanted it that way.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You back on the night shift already, Honey?” Jackie asked, looking up from her magazine, her pink lips pursed in front of her.
Reed paused a moment at the top of the stairs, his body turned to keep her from seeing his eyes pressed closed. The last thing he wanted was a lengthy conversation, the very reason he waited until after the third shift went on to come in.
“Naw,” Reed said, “just following up on a few leads. Easier to use the computers at night when the place is empty.”
Billie stood beside him, looking between him and Jackie, unsure if she should approach the desk on the far end of the room or remain in place. She seemed to sense from Reed’s body language he had no interest in moving forward, her rib cage pressed against his calf.
“That’s true,” Jackie said, nodding in agreement. “You just missed Ike and Bishop. Should have the place to yourself until morning.”
“Great, thanks,” Reed said, glad he hadn’t crossed paths with Iaconelli and his Marfan-afflicted sidekick. He paused long enough to see her raise the magazine back up, the image of Brangelina splashed across the cover, before turning and heading to his desk in the corner.
Lying flat on the seat of his chair was a single brown folder, so thin no more than a couple of sheets of paper could be inside. Without unloading anything he picked it up and thumbed through, the top sheet a rendered pencil drawing of the man Hank Winters had seen the night before.
Caucasian, with a small nose and curly hair, the person looked in no way remarkable, the same visage Reed had seen a hundred times before.
An explicative rolled out under his breath as he moved to the next pages in the file, the report from the criminologists. They had gone back to Mentor’s and took a look at the balcony, finding several fibers from a coat and gloves, though nothing with any usable DNA information.
Cursing once more Reed removed the lead from Billie, allowing her to roam free as he shook the mouse to life, dropping the files he’d carried in. Extracting a single photo from the top of the stack he made his way to the copier, scanning the image and emailing it to himself.
A moment later it was up on his screen.
Placed on the green background of a surgical towel was the entirety of Edwin Mentor’s arm, the two severed parts positioned as close together as possible. At a glance, the image looked as if someone had drawn a line through the middle of it in black magic marker, a clear gap separating the two halves.
Despite the splice through the middle, the image tattooed onto the skin was clear, a script letter K standing two and a half inches tall, the letters OTB stretched between the two bottom legs.
After thirteen years with the force, Reed had seen a fair bit of ink before. He had watched up close as it was applied to Riley’s skin in a high-end shop in Worthington, the lines clean and the colors bright. On an almost daily basis he had seen shoddy homemade efforts, made using little more than a needle and a ballpoint pen.
More times than he could count he’d seen prison work, heavy metal inks that left thick and blurry lines on the skin.
The tattoo etched across Mentor’s arm fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, the work neat enough to have been done in a shop, just marred enough to denote that it wasn’t a top dollar establishment.
Clicking on an icon, Reed pulled up the Columbus Police Department Gang Unit database, entering his badge number and password. A few clicks got him into the repository for emblems and markings, the screen split between Mentor’s arm and every known insignia in central Ohio.
Twenty minutes of scrolling revealed nothing, none of the stored images even close to the symbol he was searching for.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” a voice shot across the room, a mocking tone bore of faux surprise and condescension. “Look at this guy in here playing detective.”
A sense of dread passed through Reed as he shifted his attention away from the screen. He remained silent as he glared at the pair of men waiting in the center foyer, both with cups of coffee in hand, smug looks on their face.
“I guess making the lead story on the evening news and the morning paper was enough to finally get you to work, huh?” Iaconelli asked, the look growing more pronounced on his face.
Since the last time Reed had seen him he had swapped out shirts for a solid red number buttoned to the lower chest, the effect making him resemble a balding Kool-Aid Man.
“I thought you guys had gone home for the night?” Reed asked. “Couple of regular nine-to-fivers around here?”
A momentary look of surprise seemed to pass between them as they exchanged a look, Iaconelli extending a hand towards him. “Nine-to-fivers. If you think such a thing exists in here, no wonder you haven’t solved this thing yet.”
Heat rose along Reed’s back as he stared at the men, his heart rate rising, pulse starting to pound through his temples. Beside him Billie picked up on the change, pulling her chin from the floor and raising herself to a seated position.
“Could be that, or that thing he calls a partner there,” Bishop said, motioning at Billie with his coffee cup, a look on his face that was almost hopeful, an attempt at humor in front of his partner.
“Yeah, well, after what happened, is it any surprise?” Iaconelli said, the two conducting the conversation as if Reed wasn’t sitting nearby, couldn’t hear every word they said.
The statement was more than he could bear.
Reed snapped himself up from the chair so fast the back of his knees hit against the seat, sending it hurtling backwards across the floor. The moment it happened Billie was on her feet beside him, a low growl rolling out, her fangs exposed.
“She,” Reed corrected, standing off across from them, both men frozen in place. Along the back wall Jackie seemed to have assumed the same position, nobody expecting the sudden outburst.
“Not it, not that thing, she,” Reed said, letting malevolence drip from the words. “Her name is Billie, she is a veteran and an officer in the Columbus Police Department.”
Still every other person in the room remained in place, unmoving.
“And as for my last partner,” Reed continued, his voice lowered, the tone unmistakable, “if either one of you ever say another word about her, I’ll set my new one loose on you.”
He stood peering across at them, checking each one in turn, almost daring them to respond.
“Got it?”
Both stood in complete silence, coffee cups in hand, jaws slack. Reed waited for any sign of a response and when it become apparent none was coming, snatched up the files from his desk.
&
nbsp; “Come on, Billie, let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Any hope at meaningful rest was short lived, Reed’s phone ringing at ten minutes after six, Grimes on the other end. In no uncertain terms he was told to get down to the precinct for a six-thirty meeting, his brusque manner and clipped words suggesting it wouldn’t only be the two of them sitting down together.
Allowing just enough time to let Billie out the back door and jump in the shower, the two of them met back at the car eight minutes later, both of their hair still wet from their respective chores.
Another eight after that they were parked outside the precinct, one of the first to arrive for the day, neither of them happy about it.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Reed made it to Grimes’s office two minutes before directed, finding the space already full, a trio of bodies inside. None said anything as he approached, wearing dour expressions as they turned to face him.
Behind the desk sat Grimes, his standard frown on full display. On the other side were two people Reed had seen before but never met.
To the right was Oliver Dade, senior media correspondent for the CPD. Unlike the other two he was not in uniform, dressed in chinos and a dress shirt, the sleeves rolled three times each. Approaching sixty he was one of the oldest employees in the system, his thinning grey hair belying that fact.
Beside him sat Eleanor Brandt, Chief of Police for the entire Columbus force. Perched on the edge of her seat, she sat ramrod straight, only her bottom touching the chair. Her dishwater blonde hair was pulled up tight and her lips were pursed before her, not a trace of makeup anywhere.
Though seated, Reed guessed she couldn’t have been more than five-foot-three at full height.
“Detective, thank you for joining us,” Grimes said, motioning towards the door for him to close it. Stepping inside, Reed did as asked, the sound of wood rattling through the room.
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