Blood of Others

by Rick Mofina

  Vryke’s face looked like a tomato someone had stomped in a fit of rage. But he lived; so had his father. If you could call it living.

  After they had buried his mother, Vryke and his dad sank deeper into their own dark worlds. His father sold their house and they moved into a trailer park in Houston. His dad lost his job at NASA, living on a disability pension and the small insurance payout.

  His father had begun drinking, which was okay because when he was sober he was barely able to look at Vryke. His face had swollen into a hideous ball of stitches atop his body. The kids at school called him a scarecrow. He refused to go to classes and stayed home, sitting in the dark, or reading. Vryke and his dad could go for days without voicing more than five words to each other. It was not a matter of dislike. They were two broken souls.

  Vryke had liked to read. He digested the Bible, Shakespeare, and his dad’s old computer books. He had the strange ability to understand what, to the rest of the world, were hieroglyphics. Vryke had amused himself by taking apart and reassembling old computers his dad had brought home from NASA. Sometimes they worked together on them, his father teaching him when he was sober. Vryke felt good when he was learning from his dad.

  Then on July 20, 1969, while the world rejoiced, Vryke felt what he now realized were the first stirrings of his fate.

  As the planet participated in the glory of man’s first steps on the moon, Vryke’s widowed father had been passed out drunk on his sofa in a trailer park some five miles from mission control.

  Vryke had grown anxious, then sad, watching his father.

  His dad had helped construct NASA’s computer system for the Apollo craft; had played a critical role ensuring the Eagle’s landing on the Sea of Tranquility. But he had been excluded from it all as the black-and-white lunar TV transmissions flickered on their set and Neil Armstrong was emerging from the landing craft, to write a new chapter in history.

  Vryke had tried in vain to wake his dad.

  “Dad, please. It’s your work! Your life’s work!”

  As Armstrong had descended the ladder to speak his immortal words, Vryke’s tears flowed, the flickering TV images painting his heartbroken face with the sudden realization of his family’s tragedy, their curse, the futility underscored by mankind’s triumph.

  Why had God shunned his family? His father had given his life, offering everything, the fruits of his labor, only to be rejected, as if he were descended from Cain. Why?

  Vryke had stepped outside into the humid Texas night, lifting his face to the moon. As cheers had rippled through the community, he had cursed God and the world.

  My dad helped put you there but you have forsaken him and damned us.

  Vryke felt himself swelling with a sense of vengeful purpose, the little boy, the scarecrow standing alone in a trailer park shaking his fist at the stars.

  The day will come when you will know our name.

  And history will never forget it.

  Several years later, they had moved to a small town on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., where Vryke’s dad got contracts repairing government computers through his small business.

  They had lived in a small apartment above the office. His dad still drank, so Vryke helped with the business, becoming more self-taught as he studied some of the advanced national security computer systems of the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon.

  One summer, inspired by his dad’s reminiscing about his own early years, Vryke had hitchhiked to Boston. He had gone to Cambridge, to Harvard, and found the building housing the old Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, one of the world’s first computers. It was an electromagnetic system used to solve military problems. Vryke had peered at it through the basement window with the utmost reverence. Upon his return, he had enrolled in a few evening college courses, not to learn, but to meet people, hoping older students would see beyond his disfigurement. They hadn’t. He had heard their comments behind his back.

  “What’s with that guy’s face?”

  Vryke worked to ignore them but it hurt, especially since he had no one to turn to. No friends to talk to. He had never known a woman’s love. He had ached to connect with another human being, but accepting how grotesque he was to others, he kept himself immersed in computers, until one day a girl began talking to him.

  Cynthia.

  Blondish hair, gray eyes. Really good smile. She had been nice to him, talked with him, even partnered with him for some of the lab work. He had told her one day he was self-taught and built computers, that someday computers would dominate society.

  “I believe you.” She had smiled and squeezed his hand.

  Something magical had happened.

  He lay in bed that night touching his hand. No one had ever touched him before. He had warm, pleasant thoughts about Cynthia and began telling her more about his life. She had seemed to care, touching his shoulder, listening, patting his hand over coffee in the cafeteria. His heart had come alive. Soon he found he could think of nothing but Cynthia and wanted to give her a gift. He had thought about it for days. It had to be something special, something no one else could give her.

  A poem.

  He began working on it early in the morning and late at night, tearing up pages, starting again. He had kept his writing pad at his bedside. He consulted the classics, struggling for the right words to convey what he had kept locked inside for much of his life. After nearly two weeks, he had finished what he felt was a beautiful one-page poem for Cynthia.

  He had waited for the right time, the right moment to give it to her, which came a few days later. They were alone finishing up in one of the labs.

  “Uhm,” Vryke said, “I have something for you.”

  “Oh. What is it, Eugene?”

  “Something I wrote. Just for you.”

  “Really?” Surprise in her eyes and something else he -- “Are you going to give it to me?”

  He had nodded, producing the neatly folded paper hidden in his textbook, written in his best script, without any errors, on one page. He had put it in her hands.

  “Oh my.”

  She had begun reading. His heart had swelled, for he had envisioned this moment over and over, his pulse racing, praying she would understand his love, embrace him, kiss him. His breathing almost stopped, watching her gorgeous gray eyes following his words, the very words he had agonized over alone at night for so many nights, her beautiful fingers, their perfect polished nails holding the page on which he had spilled his innermost thoughts, his soul. He had been sweating and his throat had dried with nervousness. A hand went to her mouth, to stifle something. Her eyes rolling, searching for something on the ceiling. Then she had spoken.

  “This is funny.”

  Funny? He hadn’t understood. Funny?

  “I mean, Eugene, you’re not serious.”

  Something inside had been fracturing.

  “Wait until I tell Buck. He’ll love this!”

  “Who’s Buck?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  Boyfriend? Now the forces swirling inside Vryke began to coil, tense with anger. Boyfriend?

  “Cynthia, I thought, I was your, I mean, what about us?”

  “Us?” That had triggered a chuckle, launching a spittle spray into the scars of his face. “Eugene, no. I’m sorry but I’m sure I told you about Buck. Eugene, you’re a nice, smart guy, I’m really getting good grades here

  and --”

  As soon as her words were voiced, Cynthia realized she had ignited something terribly dark and struggled in vain to reel them back.

  “Lord, please, no Eugene -- no - I didn’t mean…”

  Waves of pain rolling through him, making him confused, the pain of his life, his heart disintegrating, withdrawing into his stone fortress, stone sinking, drowning in pain. Cynthia, you have to save me, he had to save his mother, she was drunk again, he had to call Dad, the truck, Dad, his mother sliding, she’s sliding, her body, scraping on the road next to him, his father drunk, the lunar land
ing, no, not like this, Cynthia, please, if she kissed him, if she just kissed him like a princess kissing a frog she would see, can’t she see he is in such pain?

  “Eugene what are you doing? Let go of me!”

  Suddenly it had felt as if the floor leaped up to smash his head. Cynthia had reached for something, anything, fingers tightening around a bottle, breaking it against his skull over his ear, liquid burning through his auditory canal, then eating its way down the Eustachian tube, eroding the middle ear, membranes and other canals, advancing on his brain. The ambulance and Vryke screaming. By the time the doctors had gotten to work on him they were barely able to save his life.

  It was a miracle, the surgeon had told Vryke’s father, explaining how they believed they’d halted and captured all the acid with a series of aspirating needlework incisions, sponges, and diluting flushes, with no damage to the brain. Although hearing loss in one ear was a given, there was hope for some restorative surgery. “But he’ll need regular complex neurological treatments for the rest of his life to fend off acid excretions. And there is no guarantee that he will not ultimately succumb. He’ll die without the treatments and with them he’ll be in a painful battle to survive.”

  Vryke had retreated into his lonely world of computers while his father exhausted much of his life savings paying for the expensive procedures and drugs that would keep his son alive.

  Several years ago Vryke’s dad had died of a heart attack, leaving him alone with their computer business, his nightmares, and his destiny. He had less than a month to fulfill it. Vryke could not afford another betrayal.

  His chariot to immortality awaited him and his chosen one.

  Vryke stared at his newest file, looking into her eyes.

  Yes. She was The One.

  Vryke was coming for her at nearly 500 miles an hour.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Driving south out of San Francisco along the coast, Sydowski had the windows rolled down to savor the cool Pacific breezes.

  Turgeon was back at the detail reviewing reports of the insurance company’s employees and policyholders who live near Stern Grove. Nothing so far. Sydowski was awaiting more analysis from the lab, using the time to step back from the case and check on his father. The ride to Pacifica was always therapeutic for him, often yielding an insight or a fresh angle. Besides, he thought as he halted his car in front of his old man’s unit at Sea Breeze Villas, he could use a haircut.

  Sydowski’s old man was at the rear of his place, sitting in his Cape Cod chair. In his eighties, his old man was healthy. Still, it saddened Sydowski to see what time does. His dad was wearing baggy pants, a frayed sweater and a plaid shirt with a comb peeking from the breast pocket. The big strong hands that a lifetime ago had taken him through ballpark turnstiles were now gnarled and slower as he folded his tabloid on the latest message from Elvis.

  “How about a trim, Pop?” Sydowski said in Polish.

  “Sure. Sure. Come in. I’ll fix you up.”

  Indoors, it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the light change. Sydowski enjoyed the room’s scent of Old Spice, just like the old shop. Because of his age, Sea Breeze administration barred Sydowski’s old man from giving straight-razor shaves. Haircuts were another matter. His old man snapped the big towel, draping it around his son’s neck, tying it at the back. He ran the comb through his hair, began snipping, and catching up.

  “So what’s new, son?”

  “Went to the old neighborhood the other day. Had soup at the Greek’s.”

  “Which one runs it now?”

  “Telly, the youngest one.”

  “That one. Receding hairline, premature baldness.”

  It was as if they had resurrected the conversations that filled his old man’s shop all those years ago -- politics, sports, Sydowski’s work.

  “So how you doing on the bride girl murder?”

  “We’re working on a few new angles.”

  His old man stopped, just like he did when he cut hair for SFPD detectives years ago, and gestured. “Here is my advice. You want to catch this guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you go look in the weirdo department.”

  “The weirdo department.”

  “That’s right. Because anybody who does that to a nice young girl is a weirdo. Check in the weirdo department. You find him and shoot him.”

  “I never thought of that, Pop. Thanks.”

  When they finished, Sydowski called Turgeon.

  “Nothing happening right now. Walt, I was talking to Golden Gate, we should submit it all to VICAP.”

  “We’ll talk about that later.”

  “Walt, you have to consider it.”

  “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Sydowski then decided to do something he had not done for years. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach, Pop.”

  “Sure.”

  Sydowski removed his shoes, socks, rolled up his cuffs, letting the surf and sand soothe him, melt some of his tension, reminding him how much he loved California.

  “You know Pop, I called the girls. They don’t see a problem with me dating Louise.”

  “Nobody does but you. Look.” His old man’s tone signalled a lecture. “You have to step back and look at the whole thing. Basha’s been gone almost, what? Seven years. You are not being fair to Louise. If you like her, tell her and do something about it. If you want to live like a monk, tell her, then disconnect your phone. She’s too good for you, anyway.”

  Sydowski stopped to absorb his words. His father was right. Absolutely right. He was not being fair to Louise, he thought, gazing at the Pacific’s beauty.

  Back in the city, Sydowski headed for Stern Grove to the spot where they found Iris Wood’s abandoned Ford Focus. He parked on the shoulder.

  The same shoulder where she pulled over for him.

  Sydowski killed the ignition, heaved himself out. He leaned against his fender, folded his arms, standing there. Thinking.

  A pleasant peaceful pocket of the city. A few houses on the Grove’s southern edge. Birds twilling in the redwood and fir of the park. Not much traffic, nothing marking the spot to indicate that this was ground zero, the point of contact, where he had stopped her, coming up behind her, tricking her to leave her car and enter his. Then he had owned her. Sydowski studied the area the way a grandmaster studies a chessboard.

  But Iris Wood’s killer made a mistake.

  There is a fundamental tenet known by homicide detectives that some call the transfer theory. It arises from the fact that no matter how careful, no matter how meticulous, a killer always leaves something of himself at a scene and always takes something of the victim. You cannot exist in this world without leaving or taking a trace of something. Anything and everything is evidence.

  Iris May Wood’s killer was no different.

  He had left his trace here where he stopped her.

  Sydowski was the one who discovered it. Everyone else had missed it. Only Turgeon, Leo and the crime scene techs knew what it was.

  Now it was up to the lab.

  It was critical.

  Sydowski rubbed a hand over his face, blinking at the memory of Iris Wood, the little girl rescued from the fire that destroyed her family. The woman who each day searched for words to comfort the bereaved. A person who had hurt no one, who lived a quiet life only to have it end with her stabbed fifty-three times, her face removed, and her corpse displayed in a wedding gown.

  Sydowski bent his knees to touch his fingers on the road where the killer had led Iris Wood to her death.

  Fear thou not; for I am with thee.

  It was coming together. One piece at a time.

  THIRTY

  Sydowski lived just north of Stern Grove in a modest two-story house in Parkside where he and his wife had raised their daughters. The girls were grown, married, had children of their own and lived in the East. They flew out to visit him and his old man on holidays. He wished it were more often.

  Sydowski
’s grandchildren loved his backyard with its plush lawn, stone walks, shrubs, flowers and the little aviary he built with its curtained flower-box windows, tucked like a fairy-tale cottage in one corner under an oak tree.

  He ducked his head, entering the doorway of the aviary to the cooing of several dozen birds, the ribbons, and trophies won at bird shows on the paneled walls, the rocker the girls got him one Father’s Day. His new-bred Budgerigars he picked up last year were coming along since he fortified their seed mix with calcium. He loved their opaline and cinnamon wing markings.

  Checking the food and water supply of his birds, he remembered how he began raising them. Years ago, a friend gave one to his wife as a gift. He was enchanted by its song and how it soothed him, especially when he was grappling with his darkest cases. He inspected a nest of two fledgling fancies, ten days old. He got them from Louise after they met at last year’s Seattle bird fair. His old man was right. He had to sort out things with her soon.

  To work now.

  Sydowski sat in his rocker, closing his eyes, the cooing transporting him into his homicide.

  Iris Wood’s killer seethed with rage and wanted the world to know, to know that somehow she was to blame. That’s why she was displayed. That was his signature here. It was almost artful, surpassing just about anything Sydowski had experienced.

  You’re smart but you couldn’t overcome the unforeseen. The city was doing some roadwork on Crestlake where you grabbed her. You missed it in the dark, the fog.

  After Sydowski put Crime Scene on it, one of the senior techs had called him, to confidentially alert him that maybe, just maybe, they had something.

  “Walt, this guy was extremely careful. Actually he’s probably the cleanest I’ve ever seen. What you noticed out there got by everybody. This could be the break we need but we’re going to need time for more tests, maybe send stuff out. You know, Walt, in the literature, this is the most commonly missed piece of evidence.”