by Cole McCade
Good.
…not good, but. It was something.
He sighed, studying Seong-Jae’s lax face in concern, settling into a crouch in front of him with his elbows braced on his knees. “Even after seeing the old crime scene photos…”
Joshi stood, dusting his hands on the legs of his slacks and tugging his glasses off, wiping them against the hem of his suit coat in an almost compulsive gesture. “It’s different in all five senses,” he said. “I’ve seen some shit in my career, Khalaji.” He turned his head, staring glassily toward that damned and cursed open doorway. “Nothing like this.”
Malcolm only nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose and then rubbing his fingers up to the sinus hollows just inside his brows, trying to relive pressure he knew was just…stress. Stress, upset…too much.
“Do we have medical on-site right now?” he asked, and lifted his chin toward Seong-Jae. “I don’t think he hit too hard, but best to check for a concussion.”
“I’ll ask Garza.”
Joshi disappeared into the warden’s office once more, after a brief pause to stand at the threshold and breathe in deep enough to make his chest rise and fall in a visible swell.
Malcolm didn’t blame him.
But a soft sound from Seong-Jae drew him back, and he shifted his gaze to watch his partner tilt his head against the wall in a bleary, uncoordinated movement, lashes fluttering.
“Nnh…?”
Night-black eyes slipped open, fixing on Malcolm; they were murky, eyelids hanging heavily, and Malcolm worriedly cupped his palms to Seong-Jae’s cheeks to steady his lolling, listing head, holding him upright, peering into that hazed gaze.
“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
Seong-Jae blinked fuzzily. “Malcolm…?” It came out muffled, a little hollow, behind his air mask. Then his gaze sharpened, and he tried to sit up more firmly, head turning, cheek sliding against Malcolm’s palm. “Did I contaminate the crime scene?”
Malcolm couldn’t stop his laugh, even if it felt more like a hollow barking, this awful noise trying to break the cracks of the heavy pallor over him.
“Of course that’s the first thing you worry about,” he said. “No, omr-an. You just ducked out on me for a minute there.” He stroked his thumb against the knife-sharp angle of Seong-Jae’s cheekbone. “I don’t blame you. I’m feeling a little woozy myself.”
Seong-Jae stilled, gaze shifting back to Malcolm, a soft breath catching audibly. His gaze flickered, locking on Malcolm’s face, a swallow working down his throat and making his Adam’s apple bob.
“I…am sorry,” he said. “I did not expect it to overwhelm me so thoroughly. It…reminded me of…”
He trailed off. Malcolm frowned. “Flashbacks…?” he finished.
The pause before Seong-Jae answered was a little too long. “Something…of that sort.”
His gaze flicked to the side once more, toward the door, and Malcolm understood.
Not here. Not now.
But they would talk, later.
He had a feeling after this day, they would have far too many things to talk about.
Joshi stepped from the office with Garza in his wake. Malcolm didn’t know how she didn’t look as queasy as the rest of them, but then she’d been dealing with this for over a day and was likely just tired, even if her jaw was steel-tight and her stance firm. She sank down on one knee next to Seong-Jae and fished a pen from her pocket, flicking the cap to reveal a pen light.
“Let me have a look at you,” she said, shining the light in Seong-Jae’s eyes. “I’ve got medic training.”
Seong-Jae flinched away, turning his head aside, practically crushing his face into Malcolm’s palm, crumpling his mask. “I am fine,” he bit off gruffly. “I simply lost my bearings for a moment.”
Exhaling, Malcolm let his hands drop, but leaned in to catch Seong-Jae’s eye. “Omr-an. She just wants to check you for a concussion. Let her? Please?”
Seong-Jae’s eyes narrowed. “You do not play fair.”
“It’s easier to worry about you right now than about…that.” Malcolm half-smiled. “Indulge me.”
“Tch.”
But Seong-Jae submitted, letting Garza tip his face back toward her while she flicked the light back and forth between his eyes. “Dilation looks normal,” she said, even while he squinted at her, brows knotting in a fierce glare, his scar practically a red-lined glower in and of itself. “You hit your head hard enough to hurt?”
“I am in some pain,” Seong-Jae conceded, one stiff word at a time.
Garza felt around the back of Seong-Jae’s skull with brusque fingers, only for him to snap “Ow!” and jerk away; a hiss emerged from behind the mask.
Garza lofted her brows mildly. “So a bit tender and bruised, then.”
“You could have discerned that without making it worse,” Seong-Jae snapped.
“If I’d asked, you’d probably have downplayed it.” Garza sank back on her haunches. “Probably no concussion, just a contusion. I’d stay awake at least until evening, and as soon as you get out of here, get some painkillers in you. NSAIDs just to be safe. But you’re fine. Though if you want to sit this out…” She jerked her head toward the door. “I don’t blame you.”
“I will manage,” Seong-Jae growled, already drawing his legs to himself, clearly meaning to stand up.
Malcolm sighed.
She’d piqued Seong-Jae’s pride.
No point even arguing with him about taking a time-out, for now.
So Malcolm only stood himself, offering Seong-Jae his hand. “C’mon. You can lean on me if you need to.”
That earned him a filthy look, and he smiled.
At least, even if he didn’t think he’d sleep well again for many, many nights…
He always had Seong-Jae to focus on.
Seong-Jae slipped his hand into Malcolm’s, and Malcolm hoisted himself up and squeezed Seong-Jae’s fingers tight before letting go and looking between Seong-Jae, Joshi, and Garza. “Once more into the breach?”
Joshi swept a pallid imitation of a mocking bow. “Gentlebeings,” he said, and gestured for them to proceed him.
Seong-Jae and Garza rolled their eyes in unison, accented by Garza’s snort.
Malcolm only steeled himself, and braced himself to be as clinical as possible when he walked into the room.
He had to look at this as evidence.
Even if he hated detaching himself from the human lives these had once been.
Still were, to him.
Even through the desecration of flesh…
Their humanity remained as a haunting, even if nothing more.
He adjusted his mask to make sure it was secure against his beard, took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment to steel himself…
Then took the plunge.
He crossed the threshold once more, standing just inside and to the right of the door. It was one of the only clear spaces on the floor; the first detail he took to note. The entire room had been fouled; if the floor wasn’t piled with bodies and body parts and turned-over furniture and books torn from the shelves along the walls, it was matted with pools of blood, other human offal that joined its combined thick-foul and acrid scents to the sticky fleshy smell of dried and drying blood. With how much there was, it had likely accumulated when the stitched-together bodies had been exsanguinated.
He would estimate the bodies here at over two dozen, he thought, if he had to hazard a guess—and it was difficult, when some of them had been beaten to a pulp, others dismembered and pulled apart and cut back together just like those photographs, still others skinned, their naked muscled carcasses piled in a heap like they’d been stripped at a slaughterhouse, their peeled-away hides cut into bits and streamers arcing across the ceiling.
Seven suspended, hanging from light fixtures.
One, one, two, three.
Secondary incisions on their necks, separate from those that had beheaded them, likely where they’d been drained before d
ismemberment.
So that would make probably another half-dozen dead in the incidental crime scenes, he thought. Likely casualties of the suspect’s escape. Focus on the details. The puzzle. The logic. Not the fact that this was…
Monstrous.
He felt like he was looking at a child’s playroom.
A spoiled child’s playroom.
This was a child whose toys had no value, so they didn’t bother taking care of them, putting them away, keeping them clean.
All of the bodies, even those the killer had worked at to make his macabre adjustments and piece back together, were naked. In one corner of the room, saturated in blood, wadded up, stuffed behind a potted plant, were multiple articles of clothing. Mostly prison oranges, but he caught red-spattered white uniform shirts, black slacks, what looked like part of one suit coat.
He could almost pick out patterns, here. Order in which things had been done, by the criss-crossing of many-sized footprints marked out in blood. The configuration of bloodstains, splashed on walls and windows, floors and bodies. He felt a sense of…
Malcolm turned his head toward Seong-Jae; Seong-Jae’s face was white, his eyes flat and reflective and too blank, but there was something almost…furious, burning behind that smoldering expression.
Something hateful.
Malcolm nudged him with his arm. “I’m…getting a sense of disappointment here,” he said. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” Seong-Jae said hoarsely, craning his head in that slow way he had, black eyes drilling, fierce, ticking sharply over the scene. “These were not his ideal conditions. He was not happy with the work he did here, but he made the best of it. Perfectionism was impossible in this environment. And so…”
He nodded toward the seven male corpses dangling like dolls from the ceiling; each had been cut apart at the joints, slices removed, and then stitched back together again with what looked like simple sewing thread, double or even triple layered for thickness. They weren’t as neat as prior crime scene photographs; without his tools, the suspect had likely had to improvise, and from the lumps and bulges visible against purpling skin Malcolm would guess that without wire or a bone saw on hand, the perpetrator had simply snapped bones at key points using leverage and force.
“…he made do,” Seong-Jae finished.
“Yeah.” Malcolm tilted his head back, letting his gaze drift to the ceiling, the precise cutouts of the skin stretched behind the row of bodies like a celebratory banner. The time that must have taken; the effort. “He had access to these people for a long time without anyone coming in to find him or stop him.”
Garza knocked on the thick oak panel of the door with the back of one latex-gloved hand. “Soundproof,” she said. “Warden insisted on it. Got a few tips from the guards about it ‘cause it’s against regs, but he always pulled strings. Claimed it let him concentrate when the inmates got rowdy. Lock the door, and nobody knows what’s going on in here.”
Joshi frowned. “So our suspect manages to capture this many people in this room without being discovered, terrorizes them, kills them all, then takes time to stage the scene. How did one man do this?”
“He didn’t,” Malcolm said. “He had help. I’m guessing the security footage will back that up.”
And he really wanted to see that footage.
But he understood, now, why Joshi had wanted him to see the scene first.
Raw, unfiltered impressions.
Reading the story through the mind that had told it, instead of simply watching.
Joshi eyed him. “Why would anyone help him with this?”
“Because they didn’t want to be next,” Malcolm said. “Because they wanted out and thought this was just a prison break, until it was too late. Look at the footprint patterns—at least five different shoe sizes, and they can’t all be victims. But the ones who helped him are probably still in this room.” He folded his arms over his chest, frowning. Something was still eating at him, something that didn’t feel right. “…I don’t think he was only disappointed in the conditions of the kill scene.”
Seong-Jae turned his head toward him. “What are you thinking?”
“He was disappointed in himself.”
Malcolm let himself study the stitched-together bodies again, before moving to the ones that had been brutalized. Brutalized, and left scattered in haphazard heaps to the far side of the room; one man’s head had been crushed into an unrecognizable pulp, barely even still clinging in a few fragments of meat and bone to the stump of his neck, while another dozen or so looked to have been beaten to death, their death-swollen limbs bulging.
“He’s been repressed for over a decade and a half,” he said. “When he finally had free rein to let himself go, he snapped. He did violent, messy things. Inelegant work. Nothing he wanted to claim for his own. It would be like Michelangelo being forbidden to sculpt for years after creating the Statue of David, only to return to his work and find himself capable of nothing but crude clay pots.” He gestured toward the beaten bodies. “They were beneath him. He didn’t even want to look at that as his, once the first frenzy passed. That would be…”
“Sacrilege,” Seong-Jae finished softly. “He would see this as sacrilege.”
“And they were trash to him,” Joshi added. “The ones he discarded. He’d already ruined them. No fixing them, so he pushed them aside like trash to make room for his real work.” He smoothed his hands over his slacks again, what seemed a compulsive, ritual gesture. “It’s almost too easy to lose the pattern in the carnage.”
“That might have been intentional,” Malcolm said. “But ego comes into play here. He had to leave his hallmark.” He frowned, pressing his knuckles over his paper mask. “He had to let us know he was here.”
Seong-Jae tilted his head back, looking up at the skin cutouts, the bodies that even now swayed as if in some unseen breeze. “This is new, however. A new escalation.”
“What do you think it’s saying?” Joshi asked.
“Quite simply,” Seong-Jae said, in a tired, dreadful hush, “‘Come and play with me.’”
C
SEONG-JAE DID NOT THINK THEY would find much of use in this crime scene.
It was too muddled, too many overlapping layers of activity, time.
Yet even with the carnage, even with the utter destructive mess surrounding him…
He could still see trails of something marking out stages.
Stage one: secure the office with both aggressors and potential victims inside.
Stage two: make an example of the first few victims in a violent rage that expelled the killer’s pent-up needs.
Stage three: execute the rest of the intended victims.
Stage four: turn his accomplices into more victims, catching them off-guard. By that time the killing field was likely a bloody mess, a liability, slipping and sliding footsteps leaving arcs of smeared blood in the shape of fingerprints and shoe heels that Seong-Jae traced with his eyes as he paced carefully through the room, taking in minute details.
Stage five: clean up the mess to prepare the work area.
Stage six…
Do the work.
Do the bloody, terrible work of butchery, and stage the scene when he was done.
By the time he had walked every inch of the room, moving carefully in the few clean areas of flooring to avoid disrupting any evidence, he was almost numb to it. He had to be, seeing it with his eyes slightly unfocused, taking himself out of this space and depersonalizing until he was just a moving doll, an automaton performing a function.
Not reliving the feeling of skin peeling back from flesh. Knowing the particular pull of it, the rubbery stretch, the way it would cling until it came loose and drew slowly away like removing the backing from a piece of adhesive.
He shuddered, gorge rising, and closed his eyes as he turned his face away from an examination of the one corpse whose head had been nearly removed from its body, thighs tensing as he balanced in his crouch.
He w
ould not think of that.
He would not slip inside this killer’s head and make room for himself, until he felt as though he had never lived anywhere else.
A soft scuff of shoe leather warned him before Malcolm’s warmth drew close, the edge of his suit coat brushing against Seong-Jae’s shoulder.
“Hey.” Quiet, but with a burnt, weary edge. “So we’ve got twenty-six here, meaning seven at the other incidental sites. You want to go take a look at them?”
Seong-Jae shook his head, opening his eyes and rocking back on his heels to stand. “Surveillance footage would be more useful at this point. I think we have determined everything we can from an unbiased view of the evidence, and Aanga’s backward approach has served out its usefulness.”
“I heard that,” Aanga muttered from across the room, as he surveyed the skinned corpses.
Skinned corpses whose faces were still monstrously intact.
“You were meant to,” Seong-Jae threw back. “This violates protocol.”
“This case violates everything,” Aanga spat, and Seong-Jae arched a brow.
But chose not to respond.
This…abattoir had them all on edge, and they were all expressing it differently.
Malcolm distracted him with a bump of his elbow. “So this case…are we thinking OCD?”
“No.” Seong-Jae snapped one of his gloves off and ran a hand back through his hair, exhaling into his mask; the warm blowback of the captured air almost made him feel queasy, more than the residual throbbing against the back of his skull. “Obsessive compulsive disorder typically does not manifest in such violent ways. Not to mention the compulsive part—if they were driven by OCD fixations to commit these murders, they would not be able to control themselves enough to mask and plan.” He risked a look up at that banner of skin again; the neat, precise edges. “This is a personally manifested psychosis that selectively incorporates some traits of OCD, paired with antisocial personality disorder of the highest magnitude.”
The long, low sound Malcolm exhaled could only be described as reluctant disgust. “So we’re likely looking at a dark triad.”
