“Some people,” Crockett grunted.
“Ain’t everbody as delicate as you are, man.”
“How’s Bryant’s property look from the air?”
“Got about four old broken down outbuildings other than what’s around the house and the horse barn an’ shit that I could see. A couple of overgrown tractor trails an’ shit. Maybe a county road, too. I don’t know how big his place is, but the land south and east of that big-assed barn is just ragged, man. Hill and hollows, trees, and scrubby pasture.”
“Dale says he has close to five sections.”
“Wow! No shit?”
“Guess not.”
“Fucker’s huge. You know how it’s laid out?”
“No. It should be marked on a county map in the courthouse or someplace. Records usually show who has what where.”
“You get me one a those an’ a terrain map, I can damn near give you a survey of the fucker.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You mentally erect for this cat or something, man?”
“Just curious.”
“Ha! You don’t get just curious, dude. I know your ass.”
“You had breakfast?” Crockett asked.
“Changin’ the subject?”
“Bacon and eggs?”
“Got any hash browns, man?”
Satin wandered downstairs while the boys were in the kitchen. Crockett added a little more of everything to the preparations and twenty minutes later they were eating on the deck under intense scrutiny from both dogs.
“You guys work today?” Stitch asked.
“Nope,” Crockett said. “Day off for both of us.”
“Cool. We oughta do something.”
“Like what?” Satin asked.
“Let’s go for a ride. You guys can take my Guzzi an’ I’ll test ride the Sportster. Maybe boggie over to Saint Joe for lunch or somethin’. There’s a great little place right on the river, ya know?”
Crockett’s cell phone went off on the kitchen counter. He hustled inside. It was Smoot.
“Hey Dale. What’s up?”
“Thought maybe you’d want to know. Had a killing in Kansas City last night.”
“What else is old?”
“This was unusual. It was in one of those parking garages on the plaza. Ground floor. Stabbing. Guy bled out right where he fell. Multiple wounds. No witnesses.”
“Know who he was?”
“Not yet. I do know he was a white male, business suit, around thirty. That and the location rule out a lot of customary possibilities.”
“That’s true. Thanks for the info. I’ll call a guy and see what I can find out.”
Crockett disconnected and searched through his wallet until he found Ness’s business card and made a call.
“Detective division, may I help you?”
“Lieutenant Ness, please.”
“May I ask what the call is in reference to?”
“The homicide on the plaza last night.”
“Your name please.”
“Spiderman.”
“Just a moment. I’ll see if he can take your call.”
Crockett had time to refill his coffee before Ness came on the line.
“Spidey. What the fuck you want?”
“Hey Ell-Tee. Hear you had another knife killing last night.”
“What big ears you have.”
“They called me Dumbo in third grade. What do you know?”
“Not much. Autopsy should be in progress about now. The CS bunch just cleared the scene.”
“And got nothing, I assume.”
“I haven’t got the report yet.”
“They won’t find anything.”
“You just call to piss me off, Crockett, or is there a higher purpose to this harassment?”
“I need the autopsy report and pictures of it and the scene as soon as you can get them to me. Gimme a day or so, and we’ll talk.”
“We didn’t talk after the last time.”
“This time I may have some news for you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“And I’m afraid you won’t like it.”
“You’re just a ray of fucking sunshine, aren’t ya?”
“I live to serve,” Crockett said. “How was your wife’s trip to Orlando?”
“You got e-mail, asshole?”
“Why yes, I do.”
“Gimme the address and hang the fuck up.”
Grinning, Crockett did.
The ride to Saint Joe was hot, but nice. The lunch was pleasant, overlooking the Missouri River from under a massive umbrella on the deck of the restaurant. They watched water birds, the occasional pleasure boat, had two or three bald eagle sightings, and listened to Stitch jabber about the virtues and limitations of the old Sportster. When they got back to the cabin, Crockett broke out the iced tea and Satin headed toward the rear of the house.
“Where you going?” Crockett asked.
“Check my e-mails.”
“If there’s one there from a cop shop or Lieutenant Ness, don’t look at it.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you might not like what you’ll see. Autopsy photos.”
“What’s going on, Crockett?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe nothing.”
“And maybe something horrible.”
“Maybe,” Crockett agreed.
Satin shivered. “Oh, hell,” she said, and went into her office.
“’Sup, dude?” Stitch asked.
“Could be a false alarm.”
“Charlie inside the wire?”
“God, Stitch, I hope not.”
Satin’s voice floated to them out of her office. “Crockett, I got an e-mail here with an attachment addressed to Spiderman.”
Crockett got up and walked toward the office with Stitch on his heels. “You know how to look at that kinda stuff, hippie?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Satin came out as they were attempting to go in. “I’ll be on the porch,” she said.
“Smart girl,” Crockett replied.
Stitch sat at the computer and chuckled. The message on the screen read…
Dear Spidey,
Here’s the stuff you so graciously requested. If you withhold information, I’ll take you off
my Christmas card list.
Check out the attachment. Four shots at the scene, four on the slab. Call me.
Love and kisses,
The Cop Ness Monster
“Cat’s got a sense of humor,” Stitch said.
“Yeah,” Crockett replied. “Show me the stuff.”
The first photograph was of a businessman type with short blond hair wearing a dark gray suit, lying on his back on the concrete beside a late model Acura sedan. The suit was black with blood at the crotch, the chest, the right side, and the upper right arm. What little blood that had pooled around the body looked pristine. The next three pictures were of the same scene from different angles. Stitch looked at Crockett.
“Dude was dead quick, man,” he said. “No struggle traces in the blood on the floor, not a lot of bleed-out. The chest blood is heart blood. Gotta be. Not much pump, not much blood.”
“Goddammit,” Crockett muttered, shaking his head. “Fucker’s back.”
“Looks that way,” Stitch said. “You ready?”
“Go ahead.”
The next photo was of the same man, nude, on a stainless steel drip table. He was lying on his back. There was a deep slash on the inside of each upper thigh, a definite puncture wound over the area of the heart, a ripping gash from the front of his lower right bicep around to the side of the arm, and another puncture wound on the right side of his upper ribcage. The last three pictures were more of the same.
“He missed this time, Stitch,” Crockett said. “No throat wounds, and the heart wound was a stab, not a slash.”
“This fucker didn’t miss shit,” Stitch said. “The hit on the chick was from the front. This one was from
the rear. Seven point attack, man.”
“Seven point attack?”
“Yeah. Arm, throat, heart, leg, leg, arm, lung. Seven points. First the right arm. You approach from behind and use the blade in a stabbing grip to slash the right arm a little above the elbow and pull it backward toward you as the muscles and tendons are torn away. Useless arm. As you do that, with your left hand you reach over the other side of the cat’s back, grab his chin, or throat, or collar, and pull his head to the left and away. He’ll come backwards against you as you kneel, and onto his back. An overhand stab goes into the chest and punctures the heart. Then slash the upper inside of the right leg, slash the upper inside of the left leg, push the useless right arm away from you and across the front of the body to expose the right side of the ribcage, and stab into the right lung. Arm, throat, heart, leg, leg, arm, lung. Seven points, five cuts, six seconds, and you’re outa there, dude. This cat is one serious motherfucker. When did he do that girl?”
Crockett felt numb. “March,” he whispered.
“Middle of July now, man. This guy has got a real jones, Crockett. You gonna talk to Ness?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Tell him the cats I heard of that can do this shit make their own blades. Might be able to pierce Kevlar, ya know?”
“That’ll cheer him up,” Crockett said.
Five hours later, Stitch and Crockett were sitting in D’Bronx on Bell. Crockett was drinking an iced tea and Stitch was gnawing his way through a corned beef on heavy rye with onions and sauerkraut.
“This shit is far out,” he said. “I been eatin’ good today, dude.” Stitch took a massive bite from a kosher dill and grinned. “You ain’t havin’ nothing, man?”
“Maybe later,” Crockett replied, looking over Stitch’s left shoulder. “Right now, Ness just walked in the joint.” He stood up to catch the Lieutenant’s attention and sat down again.
Ness strolled over and took a seat beside Crockett. His suit was rumpled, his tie loose and askew, he had bags under his eyes, and his hair products had long since failed. He peered at the hippie.
“Jerry Garcia’s younger brother, right?” Ness said.
Stitch grinned, wiped his hand on a napkin, and extended it across the tabletop. “Name’s Stitch, Ell-Tee,” he replied. “Fuck civilians.”
“As you were,” Ness said. “I’ll be in the area all day.”
“Stitch and I have been working together for a few years,” Crockett said. “He’s been instrumental in several missions, and I have trusted him with my life on more than one occasion. He and I are both still here. That enough?”
“That’ll do,” Ness said. “You eating?”
“Waiting for you,” Crockett replied. “Pizza is on me. No anchovies and no goddamn sissy-assed pineapple. You go order and bring back four Advil.”
“You got a headache?”
“It’s for you,” Crockett said.
Ness got up and went to the counter. He returned just as Stitch washed down his last bite of sandwich with a big hit of root beer.
“I assume Crockett didn’t bring you along for eye candy,” Ness said. “I therefore deduce that you have some information or observations on last night’s killing.”
“And the one under the hotel back in March, man.”
“The Presley woman?”
“Yeah. Same cat did both of ‘em.”
“What?”
“One guy, man. And he did both the murders.”
“C’mon.”
“No bull, Loot.”
“You a fuckin’ expert on this kinda shit?”
“Not quite, but I’m probably the best you got, dude. You figured it was a couple a cats that did the chick, huh, man?”
“Maybe. We weren’t sure.”
“An’ you been wonderin’ if that one and the one last night were, like, connected, huh?”
“Crossed my mind.”
“One dude, both killings. He ain’t done neither. When he does the next one, you got a fuckin’ serial killer on your hands. The civilians are gonna, like, love that shit.”
“How the fuck you know so much?” Ness asked.
“You call, we haul, motherfucker,” Stitch replied.
“What?”
“In and out, never a doubt. No trees too tall, no ell-zee too small.”
“Air-Cav,” Ness said.
“Hop ‘em and drop ‘em.”
“’Vietnam?”
“Almost four tours, Loot. An ol’ Crockett here is the best door gunner I ever had.”
Ness turned to Crockett. “You were in Vietnam?”
“No,” Crockett said.
Ness was quiet for a moment as he digested the new information. His eyes settled back on Stitch as he sat down. “Talk to me,” he said.
“Cat that did this shit is smoke, man. Used the six cut frontal attack on the woman. Right side of the neck, left side of the neck, inside right upper thigh, inside left upper thigh, assisted power cut through the sternum and to the heart, horizontal slash across the low belly to spill the intestines. Six cuts, maybe four seconds, and he just disappears on the breeze. Don’t leave you guys shit. Nobody saw nothin’. Nobody heard nothin’. Nobody, includin’ you dudes, knows nothin’. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“Last night the cat used the seven move, five cut, rear attack. Arm, throat grab, heart, leg, leg, arm push, lung. Maybe five seconds and the smoke is on the breeze again. Dude is major, Ell-Tee.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, Ness said, “how the hell you know so much about this shit?”
“I hopped and dropped a lot of Seals, Rangers, Berets an’ shit back in the day, man. Hung around with a lot of them snake-eaters, ya know? Them cats was all serious. Some were seriously serious. Always on a mission, workin’ out, practicing their shit, or sleepin’. Best of the best and all that hoorah shit. A tiny percentage of the elite were even more elite. Either they had elephant balls like some a the tunnel rats, intense skills like our sappers, or were thrill of the kill freaks. Some of them, and I mean just some of them, that had the will to kill and really, like, needed to, got some special assed training. The doer on these two is one a them. Assignment freelance types. Ain’t many of ‘em. Most don’t never make it back. In the ‘Nam, some got dusted, some went outa their heads, some were killed by our guys on orders, man, and some went native in Cambodia or Laos or wherever and never came back to the world at all. Dig it. Those few that did come back had a bitch of a time. Some checked out, some became security guys, or mercenaries, or enforcers, or some shit. What they did not do was marry the fucking girl next door, have two point seven kids, play golf on Sunday, join the fucking Rotary Club, and sell used cars. Not after what they had to become to do what they did. This cat is one of those. Loved bein’ in country. Bosnia, Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, wherever. Ain’t the place that makes ‘em. They are what they are. It’s the Army or the Navy or the corps that encourages them to develop their natural tendencies, trains ‘em, them aims ‘em at somebody. Can’t unload these fuckers, man. They are locked and cocked. And once they’re loose, they’re loose, ya know?”
Ness stared at him for a moment. “Well, how do we catch this guy?”
“Don’t think ya can, Loot. But if you do, it’ll probably be by accident.”
“Fuck,” Ness said, and leaned back in his chair.
The waitress arrived with the pizza. Pepperoni, black olive, and onion all over, with pineapple on half. Ness looked at Crockett.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said.
After about ten minutes of quiet on the drive home, Crockett couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Now what, Stitch?”
“Now what, what? Now what, nothin’, man. You got no place to go with this shit. Neither do the real cops. No clues, you lose.”
“Shit,” Crockett said.
“Since I known ya, man, you ain’t lost one, ya know? You’re losin’ this one an’ it’s fuckin’ with your ass big time. Plus you promised the chi
ck’s mamma you’d help, only you ain’t got shit to help with. That fucks with your head. Don’t let this shit occupy you brain, man. You’ll be twitchin’ an’ bitchin’ an’ drivin’ the rest of us freakin’ crazy. Obsession ain’t just a perfume. Dig it.”
“How would you try to find this guy, Stitch?”
“SOP would be to go to the military, dude, but them squared-away, high and tight assholes ain’t gonna tell you shit. One a their guys got away from ‘em, man. They’ll sweep that under the rug so fast, the floor’ll smoke. Deny, deny, deny.”
“I just feel like I ought to do something.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re a dumbass,” Stitch said. “There’s nothin’ to be done. Like I told Ness, you even get a whiff a this cat, it’ll be just luck. Bad luck. If I was walkin’ down the fuckin’ street, man, and this dude walked by me wearin’ a sign that told me he was the one, I’d duck into the nearest store, hustle out the back door, and not stop ‘til I was in Brazil. You ain’t invincible, motherfucker. You got shot when you were a cop the first time, you lost the bottom half of your leg doin’ all that heroic shit, and you got shot this time bein’ a cop again. Just ‘cause you lived through all that shit don’t mean nothin’ other than you got lucky. Let it go, man. Luck ain’t consistent, Crockett. Luck is one fickle bitch.”
Crockett smiled. “What are you trying to say, hippie?”
“You get your ass sliced and diced, an’ ol’ Satin is gonna be pissed at me! Then I’ll still havta go to Brazil.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
By the time August rolled around Kid Country was busy, Satin was having a good time with her full-time part-time job and doing well on the BSA as long as Crockett would start it for her. Stitch was flying on the weekends, carrying passengers to ooh and aah out the windows of the baby banana and stopping by Whiskey River now and then on the Sportster. Donk was getting bigger, he and Dundee were real pals, and Crockett was amazed at the growth rate of his hybrid bluegills and little bass. He was sitting on the dock drinking coffee before the day got too hot to do such a thing when Satin, carrying a mug and wearing what appeared to be only a grossly oversized t-shirt and her big rubber boots, yawned her way to sit beside him. Crockett grinned.
Six Cut Kill Page 13
