WHITE

by Neal Arbic

  Jack finished the page and looked at Delware. He gazed down as if someone had just crapped on his hands. His face turned red, but he spoke restrained, “Is this right? Are these the lyrics to Helter Skelter?”

  “I listened to them all night, again and again, that’s what he’s singing.”

  Jack crumpled the page with one hand. “Is it all in slang? Does it mean anything at all?”

  Delware shrugged, “The one phrase: coming down fast.”

  “Which means?”

  “Bad things are about to happen.”

  Jack’s eyes asked for more.

  Delware shuffled in place. “As in: ‘the shit’s coming down.’”

  “So this is what passes for lyrics today, absolute nonsense: no story, just random words?” Jack jammed the ball of paper into his pocket. “This is what drugs have done to your generation.”

  “So, you giving up on your theory, that there’s some deep meaning in it?”

  Jack headed for the mansion. “Hell, no. It’s always a jumble at the start. First, we sort out the pieces, then, we fit them together.”

  ***

  Jack and Delware stopped at the front door. Its bloody message was still there, each man reading it inside his head. They entered.

  They paused before the living room. The bodies were gone, their outlines remained.

  Jack stared calmly at the blood spatters and stained carpets. After a couple thousand cases, he knew that almost all the clues he needed were right here…if he read them right.

  For all the crime scenes Delware had seen, nothing compared to this. This was a dozen murders in a single room. A real battlefield. Large areas of black dried blood covered the white carpet. Every wall and piece of furniture was splashed. Delware’s eyes were drawn to a blood sprayed American flag draped over the couch. He pointed, “Was that left by the murderers?”

  Jack shook his head. “No, victims’ idea of decoration.”

  Jack held his breath and then let it out slow. “A crime scene is a story, but there’s always a couple pages missing. So we have to read in between the lines and figure out what’s missing.” He took a small step into the living room, his eyes deliberately reading the room. “One reason Patty wants to find a drug deal angle is ‘cause then there’s a connection between victim and perpetrator. It’s always the lover, family member, business colleague…or dealer.”

  Jack stepped over an outline like the body was still there. He had memorized every corpse and for him they were still in the room. “It’s very difficult to find a serial killer because there is no personal relationship with the victim. A psychopath kills for the sake of killing. He doesn’t need a reason. He just needs a victim.”

  In the middle of the room, Jack paused to reconstruct the crime. He stared a moment, then closed his eyes. A moment later, he opened them slow and careful like lifting a coffin lid. In his mind’s eye the dried blood on the walls turned red and shiny, suddenly it was night and every light in the room was turned on. In his mind the scene now played in reverse: knocked over tables and lamps righted themselves, bodies rose from where they fell. The blood on the walls flew back into still struggling victims. His calculated trajectories showed their last movements before they collapsed. Jack could see the knives plunging in, the directions the blades came from. The only thing missing: the killers. In Jack’s mind, they were empty air. He saw only knives floating and plunging down as if held by ghostly hands.

  Then it ended. The crime scene had spoken. Now, he played it forward. He followed the victims in their final moments, heard their screams and the heavy thuds as they hit the floor. He read their dying faces, wishing they could whisper to him from beyond the grave: what they saw, who they saw. Delware watched Jack following a trail of blood. Jack was following Sharon Tate and ended up behind the couch where she fell. He squatted. Delware came up beside him. Jack watched Sharon’s last breaths. His wide eyes saw Sharon slip away - the struggle leaving her: eyes closing, face muscles slacking, her nightmare evening finally ending.

  The vision ceased. Jack was back in the sunny room, before him lay only carpet dried hard with black blood.

  He stood up and scanned the room. “It’s in here somewhere. A psycho always leaves a signature. Like when a man marries a woman, he puts a ring on her finger. So every nut leaves…or takes…something…to make this, his.”

  Delware’s eyes roved the large bloody letters on the walls: Helter Skelter, Piggies. He whispered, “Ma-tha-fucka. These are some freaked out maniacs.”

  Jack looked up at the walls and smiled. “Patty and Dirk think it’s a ploy the killers wrote to throw us off. So we won’t look for direct connections to the victims. It’s a bad bet. Never discard a piece of evidence or ignore what’s right in front of you. Never drop anything till it’s been thoroughly examined.” Jack waved around the room. “If the writing was staged, there would be more staging.” His eyes hunted. “Murder’s a primal act. Cool heads never prevail. Staged murders always read funny: bodies are moved, blood spatters don’t line up. Clues come up way too easy.”

  Delware surveyed the outlined carnage. “Well, it certainly looks like the work of hardcore freaks.”

  Both men moved slowly, floating over blood stains, contemplating random objects.

  Minutes later, Jack stopped at a cherry wood bookshelf, expensive leather-bound books from floor to ceiling, a few scattered at his feet. “Delware come here.”

  Jack pointed to a high shelf. “Look at the books.”

  Delware tiptoed through the evidence. “Yeah?”

  “Notice anything?”

  Delware placed a hand on his cocked hip. “It’s a mess, like everything else.”

  “Yeah, it is, but look at the bookshelves. And then, look at the rest of the room.”

  Delware studied a moment, then it dawned. “It’s only that one shelf that’s disturbed! All the tables and chairs are knocked over like signs of a struggle, but the rest of the shelves are in perfect order, no signs of impact.” He stepped closer and pointed. “Only these few books from this one shelf…second from the top. These books weren’t knocked over in a struggle. They were pulled off on purpose.”

  Jack smiled. “Now, if we didn’t have a football team in here the first day it would have been more obvious, but now these books on the floor have been kicked about by patrolmen.”

  They scanned the scattered books.

  Delware asked, “Was there something behind the books? Was this staged?”

  “Maybe.” Jack tiptoed through the books and stopped. He whispered as if his very breath might disturb evidence, “Delware.”

  Delware’s eyes followed Jack’s. There, on the white carpet, was a black Bible.

  Jack squatted.

  Delware squatted beside him. “What is it?”

  “Look at the books, then the Bible.”

  Delware’s eyes jumped from books to Bible, again and again.

  He saw it. “Jack! There are pages hanging out. Someone was ripping pages.”

  “That’s right, kid. You see any other books ripped up?”

  Delware checked again. “Not one.”

  Jack took a pen from his jacket pocket to open the Bible. He careful flipped pages to where they were torn out. It was from the very back, the last book of the Bible.

  Delware leaned over Jack’s shoulder. “Why would someone rip pages out?”

  Jack’s pen shifted through the torn pages. Thinking aloud, he whispered, “Wonder if it means anything…the missing pages are all from The Book of Revelation.”

  “The Apocalypse of Saint John?”

  Jack looked up at Delware, “You know your Bible, kid?”

  Delware nodded. “My mother never missed a prayer meeting or Sunday service.”

  “My wife was the same way. Use to drag me to church every Sunday.” Jack looked around at the bloody room and then to Delware. “Does this look like the final battle of Armageddon to you?”

  Jack’s eyes returned to the black Bible, his fac
e almost Buddha-like in its calm, his eyes lucid as if contemplating the face of God. He whispered and did not even hear himself say, “A good book always hides something.”

  Then he flinched. He stood and walked briskly to the wall, his feet treading through the outlined bodies he had so carefully avoided just moments ago. Gazing up at the bloody letters, his rough fingertips touched the white wall. He whispered to himself, “Look at that.”

  Delware navigated over. “What?”

  His voice startled Jack out of the reverie. Jack pointed to the letters. “See the strokes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Notice anything?”

  Delware strained his eyes, but came up with nothing.

  Jack asked, “What would you say they were written with?”

  Delware looked puzzled, “Too wide to be fingers. A cloth, small towel?”

  “A blood soaked cloth could write many strokes, a whole letter. Notice how each stroke drips? That means whatever was used - didn’t hold the blood and had to be soaked again and again - for every stroke. You wouldn’t need to do that with cloth.”

  Jack glanced back at the Bible. Delware followed his stare.

  Delware turned back to Jack and questioned with his eyes.

  Jack just smiled.

  It hit Delware like a brick. “The pages. The missing pages from the Bible!”

  Jack corrected, “Pages from The Apocalypse.” He looked up at the wall. “And what is the Apocalypse?”

  Delware was surprised his mother’s sermons had at last become useful. “The end of times, Judgment Day, the revenge of God, divine destruction and chaos.”

  Jack smiled. He tapped his nose and pointed at Delware, signaling he had hit it right on the nose. Like a teacher to a blackboard, Jack pointed to the letters. “It’s slang. How would you describe divine chaos? Apocalyptic anarchy? What’s a more modern word for chaos?”

  Delware could see where Jack was going. He looked up at the bloody letters. “Helter Skelter.”

  ***

  They walked down the long oak-lined drive from the mansion.

  Delware asked, “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Dirk is lead investigator and in some ways that’s to our advantage. Even with his theory, he’s still gotta run in a dozen different directions, knocking the case down the totem pole: burglary gone wrong, mob hit, revenge, drug freak out, drug burn, lover’s quarrel, until he narrows it. Even then it’s likely he’ll miss the mark, ‘cause I doubt he’ll like the conclusion. He’s already dismissing the evidence that leads right to it…because it’s too incredible.”

  “That hippies did this?”

  Jack nodded and instructed, “Suspect everyone.”

  He shook his head. “This whole crime scene stinks, kid. It’s not a normal murder. And there’s nothing even remotely remarkable about this missing groundskeeper, or his record. Yet Dirk still gotta track down Ray Claborn who will be on the top of his short list of suspects. That could take weeks, maybe months.” Jack spit, lit a cigar and looked back at the mansion. “Hell, even motorcycle gangs - who are bat-shit crazy - don’t fit this. No. This is some psycho Judgment Day horseshit we’re looking at. And all the rules and procedures go out the window with it.”

  They got to the gate. The lone patrolman stamped out another finished cigarette.

  Delware stopped in his tracks.

  Jack got a few steps ahead, before he noticed and turned. “What is it, kid?”

  Delware’s eyes were wide. “I saw something.”

  He dashed back to the house.

  Jack watched him go, then slowly followed.

  He found Delware in the living room.

  What Jack saw seemed a strange vision: the way the sunlight fell on the red and white stripes of the American flag draped over the couch, the white wall dripping with the bloody letters: Helter Skelter, the black man in the foreground, with his back to him.

  “Delware?”

  “I remembered this plate on the edge of the coffee table, yet there’s no tea cups, not even a coffee mug in sight.”

  Delware slowly turned, in his hand a black plate with three white sugar cubes.

  Jack looked down at the cubes. “What?”

  Delware held the plate high as if offering it to Jack. “I think, Jack, this is LSD.”

  3:14 PM

  The rattle of pipes haunted the LAPD basement. The evidence room was a floor to ceiling cage. Inside its chain-linked walls, a dirty light bulb illuminated a battered wooden desk. Jack and Delware stared down at the black plate upon the desk. There, three white sugar cubes glistened under a bright desk lamp.

  Jack looked irritated. “I don’t get it, what the hell is this stuff doing in sugar?”

  Delware’s dark eyes never left the cubes. “LSD is a potent liquid. You won’t want to take even a half teaspoon of the stuff. You only need a few micrograms to send you out on a very long, weird trip. Because the dosage is so low and the liquid clear and odorless, you need something - something to absorb it: a tiny piece of blotter paper, a gelatin tablet, a sugar cube.”

  “How do you know it’s there?”

  “I’ll show you.” Delware flicked off the light and turned on a set of overhead black lights used to detect minute traces of blood. Delware smiled as the room flooded with an ultraviolet hue. His eyes surveyed the eerie glowing haze. “Humans can't see this part of the light spectrum.” Delware leaned in close and pointed at small bluish-white patches now glowing on the cubes. “See that? Just like blood and semen, acid - I mean, lysergic acid diethylamide, glows under black light.”

  Jack’s eyes focused on the glowing spots. “I’ve heard of this, but never seen it.”

  Delware gave a smug, “I doubt you would have. Hippies don’t go around murdering each other. LSD isn’t a typical drug you’d find at a homicide.”

  Jack pulled out his silver flask and took a swig. He had seen arrogance in younger officers before, but never a black officer. Restraining his irritation with Delware’s tone, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “So what’s the big deal? Why do hippies love this so much?”

  “It’s a hallucinogen: it distorts your perceptions of time and space, and your usual way of thinking - screws up your senses: you taste music, hear colors. Solids appear like liquid, inanimate objects come alive; patterns on rugs and wallpaper appear to be in motion. Things close by appear far away, a gaping canyon can look like a small ditch. And it’s all very convincing. When you’re on it, it’s hard to tell the difference between reality and illusion.”

  “How does it work?”

  Delware shrugged. “I’ve heard it fries your neural pathways, kills the nerve endings, so your brain has to reroute your senses. Another theory is it causes your brain to hemorrhage, the blood trickles down so the different sides of your brain can’t communicate with each other. No one knows.”

  “So why the hell would anyone take it?”

  Delware grinned, defiant. “Why the hell would anyone drink poison?” He pointed to Jack’s flask still open and in his hand. “That alcohol is poisoning your blood stream right now.”

  Jack looked down at his flask. “Booze is different.” He took another swigged to prove his point. He smiled at Delware. “See, still standing, walls ain’t moving.”

  Delware shook his head at the old man.

  Jack frowned. “So stop fucking around and just tell me why the hell would anyone take this shit?”

  Delware squatted by the table, his eyes level with the cubes. He whispered, “Heightens your perception. People have experiences, like they’re at one with the world, feel they see the divine in everything.” Delware’s voice portrayed personal experience, “Music sounds amazing; colors are vivid. It’s all very intense, everything’s alive.”

  “Wait a second!” Jack’s accusing eyes turned on Delware. “You took this stuff, didn’t you boy!”

  Delware shot up, his face menacing. “I ain’t your boy!”

  Jack grabbed him by his collar. “You doping?
”

  Delware shouted into Jack’s face. “I ain’t your boy!!”

  An angry Delware in the glow of black light made quite a specter, that raw killer look in his eyes. Fascinated by those eyes, Jack got control of his temper first. He released his grip, pushing him away. “Take it easy, kid. You’ll blow a gasket.”

  Delware straightened out his shirt. “I ain’t following you around with no mop and shine rag! I ain’t no shucking and jiving Uncle Tom gonna tap dance for you! I’m not into your hang-ups old man! This ain’t yesterday! Get with it. That white man scene is over. I’m a man! I’m black and proud, mothafucka!”