James' eyes flashed up at her. “What?”
“Whatever happened that night. The next thing I know, I woke up in the middle of Calvary Cemetery. That’s all I know. Why the cemetery?”
I continued driving, and I hoped that she did not die inside the cemetery. I hoped not. I wasn’t ready to go back to the graveyard, just yet.
I noticed that my old neighborhood was changing for the worse. Young families were no longer moving in. The more he drove into the old neighborhood; the more things remained the same. Graffiti still covered the side wall of several two-story apartment buildings. There were still a couple of old homes on each street. Gang members hung out on their front porch, smoking menthols.
The man who called the police about a missing person lived in an old apartment house six blocks away from the cemetery. The building wasn't in great shape. The first floor looked boarded up, and the front lawn, covered in dry dirt. I spotted the apartment building and double parked in front and turned on the blinkers. I walked up the stairs to the apartment and knocked on the door.
Quickly, Julio Torres came to open the door, ”Yes. Yes. Come in, Detective Night. The council member told me that they were sending someone to help me. Come in. Thank you.“
Julio was a foot soldier for the local official, so he got influence when he needed it. Julio was a brown skinned, well-built man with bone-white hair. He wore yellow Adidas shorts and a tight dirty white t-shirt. He looked healthy. Julio welcomed me inside his house.
Good for him.
Julio led me through the hallway and sat me at a kitchen table. I noticed that he was a little nervous.
I sat down, while he served two coffees. He brought over to the table a quarter of milk and a glass mason jar filled with sugar. I kept an eye on him, as he moved through the kitchen. It looked like the old man second-guessed himself at every step.
"Thank you for coming, Detective Night.”
I said nothing at first and only took a sip of coffee, without sugar or milk. I liked my coffee black.
I glanced around the apartment. It was a small place without any woman's touch to it. I got the feeling that Julio lived in this apartment by himself.
"Tell me, Julio. What can I do for you?”
“For the past two years, I lived with my son. After his mother had left, the boy stayed with me. And, I’ve been taking care of him ever since.”
Julio took out a photograph of the boy. He looked about fifteen years of age.
“But how can I help you, Julio?”
“He’s been missing since last night.”
“Jesus, another one,” said Violet. “Now, a boy.”
However, there was no evidence that this incident was related to the other missing person cases.
“How do you know that Jesse is missing?"
"He never came back home. How else would I know? I looked in his room this evening, and it was empty. He was absent from school the whole day. His friends haven’t seen him at all.“
"Can you take me to his room?"
"Yes. Of course. Jesse's room is right over here. Come this way, Detective."
Julio and I both stood in Jesse's small room with walls covered in posters. Most of the images were of bikini-clad women modeling in front of vintage Detroit muscles cars.
I looked around and found the place a mess. Jesse's clothes draped on the floor. His school books piled in the corner. They looked brand new as if they had never been open.
"To be honest, Detective Night. I don't know when he comes home from school. He may have come back from school and left again. I'm not sure, exactly. Please find him.”
“Does he attend Roosevelt High School?"
"Yes, he does. You could probably question some of his friends at the high school. I called some of his friends late last night. But they don't know anything."
"Is anything missing from your house, Julio?”
"What do you mean?"
"Is there any cash, credit cards or valuables missing?"
"No. Jesse wouldn't steal from me. He's a good boy. Sure, he gets into trouble. But not too much."
As the old man spoke, I knew that Jesse was a kid that got into more trouble, than his stepfather wanted to admit. The tattoos on Jesse’s face made James think about the skinhead that almost ran him over, the other night.
Later I found out that Jesse had been busted a couple of times by the police, for carrying two ounces of marijuana. However, the precinct captain in the area was the kid’s uncle and kept Jesse out of jail.
At that moment, a dog ran into the room. The dog started to jump on Julio. He was a big lab with a shiny black coat. James noted how well groomed the dog was. Whoever the dog belonged to, the owner loved him very much and took good care of him. The dog even had a golden chain.
The old man became annoyed by the dog and started to yell at him in Spanish. He got the dog off of him with a swift kick.
“Julio, who does that dog belong to?"
"It belongs to Jesse. The dog is a pain in the ass. But, Jesse loves that dog more than anything. That dog goes with Jesse everywhere."
"Really?"
At that moment, I got an idea.
"Yes. That's how I knew that something bad happened to Jesse. When I came back home from work, the dog was outside, waiting for me to let him in the house. His leash was still on him, and it dragged on the floor, as he paced back and forth in the front yard. I know Jesse. When Jesse went outside, he never let that dog out of his sight."
As Julio kept talking, I stopped looking around the room and went over to the dog. I kneeled in front of the black lab and started to inspect it.
"What's his name?”
"What does it matter what the dog's name is? Jesse is out there, missing. Something wrong happened to him. I know it. I can felt it. Forget the dog."
"Please, Julio. What is the dog’s name?”
"Fine. The dog's name is Rocky."
"Thank you."
I carefully examined the dog and found some spots of dry blood on the back of his ear. I checked the dog to make sure the blood did not come from a cut that the dog may have suffered.
I noticed only a couple hairs covered in blood. I didn't bother to mention it to Julio. There was no point to trouble him with news that there might have been some foul play involved in his son’s disappearance.
I stood up and grabbed the dog's leash. "Come on Rocky."
Without saying a word to Julio, I walked the dog down the hallway and to the front door and left.
"Mr. Night, what are you doing? Where are you going with Rocky?" Julio yelled.
I shouted back, as I walked the dog down the stairs. "I'm going to go look for your boy. What do you think, I'm going to do?” I looked over his shoulder, and there was a big smile on Julio’s face.
I led the dog to the front of the building where there was a front yard filled with dry dirt. The car was still double parked. It would be okay there. Either way, the car belonged to the department.
I ran my hand over Rocky's back and unleashed him. Then, I opened the gate of the front yard. The dog ran out of the yard and down the street. The dog kept going, and I thought that I was about to lose the dog. I kept his eye on Rocky until the dog finally stopped, lifted up his head and stared back at me.
"I'll be damned.” Rocky, the dog, was waiting for me to follow him.
I left my car double parked on the street and followed the dog down the block. They passed several brick row houses. The dog stayed ahead of me, leading the way. Most of the houses on the next block were single family homes with driveways, leading to garages in back.
I followed the dog down another block, resulting in a house sandwiched between two apartment buildings. It looked like the house was abandoned and boarded up on all sides. The windows covered with security panels.
When I got to the front of the house, the dog went through the side yard and ran to the backyard.
Violet and I followed Rocky.
The unkempt grass in
the back yard was tall. The dog disappeared through the weeds and stopped. Rocky sniffed and clawed at a spot on the ground as if the dog were telling me that there was something there. Violet and I walked toward the dog.
“Are you ready James?” asked Violet.
I bent down to examined the ground. It looked loose as if someone had covered the area so that it looked similar to the rest of the back yard. The dog kept clawing at the spot.
I went to where the dog's snout pointed. The ground was loose, and I dug my fingers into the earth. After a couple of scoops of dirt, I had found something. The dog was right. There was some dry blood in the dirt. I wondered if the boy was underneath the ground. I hoped not. I looked up at Violet, but she was gone.
I looked around, wondering if the boy’s spirit was somewhere around here, walking around the neighborhood, like a lost soul. The boy’s ghost would have gone home, though.
After I had examined the blood on the dirt, Rocky barked.
Rocky stood there, with his spine straight, like a statue. The dog was telling him something, again.
It was clear; there was something in that house that the dog wanted me to see. The dog was keen on finding his friend, Jesse. It was clear that Jesse must have taken good care of the dog, that was for sure. Otherwise, the dog wouldn’t have said a thing. Rocky barked, and I glanced over at the dog who kept staring in the direction of the boarded up house. He stood up and looked at the abandoned house.
The old place looked dead for over a decade. The windows were boarded up, and the gutters had rusted. The electrical wires were severed, hanging partly over the garage.
I looked up at the night sky. Now, Violet was standing in front of the house, staring at James. “Do it,” she told me. “Don’t you, want to know what’s inside the house? Don’t you want to know why you are here?”
“Yes.”
I pulled off a wooden board from the basement window with a crowbar and threw it on the ground with the other two. The nails were crooked and rusted. I broke through the dust-covered glass window with the butt of my red gun. It led to the basement. I peered inside, but only saw some junk. It was too dark to make out anything else.
I looked over at the dog, “What you think boy?”
A second later, the dog bolted through the basement window and made his way inside. I heard the dog barking. I knew the basement was a large place from the echo.
Then, the barking stopped.
I looked inside the basement for the dog. “Come on boy. Where are you?”
Suddenly a hand came from the darkness and grabbed my coat.
“Help me!” the ghost gasped, scaring the shit out me. I looked into the woman’s pale and sunken eyes. Her shoulders and neck were thin to the bone.
“Help me!” she called to me.
“Help her damn it,” said Violet.
“How?”
I looked back at the woman, and her pale skin started to go darker. I had seen this sort of thing before, and it only meant one thing to me.
Darkness was coming.
Then, I looked at my watch, and it was midnight. The ghost was trapped, inside that basement for three days. The spirit tried to scream for help again, but darkness took away her last chance at redemption. Violet leaned against the house, still struck by what happened to the woman trapped in the basement.
“What happened to her James?”
“Most likely her body is inside,” I told Violet.
It was at that moment when the precinct station called me. I unholstered my walkie-talkie, “Detective Night Over.”
“Here.”
“The chief wants to speak to you.”
For a moment, there was a time of silence. The Chief was on the other end of the line.
"Detective Night, what is the situation? Have you found Jesse? My cousin told me that you took the dog."
“Yeah, but I have not yet found the boy.”
"What did you find, then?” asked the chief.
"I have a drop of blood behind an abandoned house. That’s all, for now.”
"Is that all?”
"I'm not sure Chief. But, have some of the boys from the lab come down here and investigate the backyard. Maybe they can tell us something more.“
"And what else?"
“Well,” I looked at the broken window leading to the basement. “I’m going to need some officers to come down here and help search this abandoned house.”
"Not a problem Detective. I'll send them right over."
"What about a search warrant.”
"Don't worry about that, Detective? The judge won’t be a problem with the drop of blood that you found.”
I sat against the house and saw that Violet was struck by what happened to that woman’s spirit. I could tell that it replayed in her head.
For the first time, Violet wondered why she was still around after three days. Why her? She should have passed over to the other side, too.
Later in the night, several officers from the precinct came down to the abandoned house in Woodside. They all wore jeans and their badges around their neck. I stood in the backyard with them. Some of them carried crowbars and sledgehammers.
"So where should we begin, Detective?" Asked one of the men.
I stared at the abandoned house without saying a word. I took a moment to figure out what to do. The only thing to do was to dig. Eventually, something would turn up.
At this point, the dog knew more than I did. I patted Rocky on the back and told the officers to follow the dog.
“Start digging where the dog tells you.”
Rocky barked and went into the house through the basement window, again. The officers laughed to themselves. “Are you serious, Detective Night?”
"Yes and so is the Chief.”
Quickly, the officers went to work on the house. The dog led the team down into the basement where he ran around. Then, Rocky stopped and started to paw at a spot on the cement floor. I went to where the dog was and looked at the concrete floor. I signaled to the men and pointed to the basement floor.
James got on his walkie-talkie and called the precinct station.
"Chief, we are going to need a jackhammer."
Fifteen minutes later, two city workers from the transportation department brought in a jackhammer that was taller than both of them. A loud noise came from the basement as the men went to work on the concrete floor.
I could feel that there was something underneath there. Slowly the officers began to break up the cement floor into several pieces.
Later that night, I was giving the Captain another update when I heard an officer call my name.
"Detective Night!”
When I went into the basement, I smelled something terrible, like spoiled meat. I took out a white handkerchief and covered my face. I wanted to puke. But, I maintained my composure in front of the other officers.
"Jesus, officers. What did you guys find down here?"
"Take a look Detective."
They broke through the concrete floor and started to dig into the earth below the house. They used wheel barrels to take the dirt out of the basement. The officers had set up three flood lights to illuminate the floor of the cellar.
One officer handed me a flashlight. I walked toward the light and started to examine the hole that the officers dug. They had dug a hole about six by six feet wide. I walked along the edge and with a flashlight and pointed it inside. The officers stood behind me, as I stared into the hole.
I couldn't believe what I saw. It looked like there were three to four bodies in that hole. I couldn't make it out clearly because the bodies were severed into pieces. They reminded me of the photographs of severed body parts that the chief showed me.
I looked closer and saw that there were tiny traces of blood in their bodies. For the most part, the body parts were drained of blood. I also noticed that all their hearts and some of their organs were missing too.
For a moment I wondered if Violet was down there.
&
nbsp; I kneeled on the floor and looked at the face of each of the dead. I remembered Jesse's tattoo that ran down his face and throat. I carefully looked at each one, and I didn't find anything that matched for Jesse or Violet
Quickly, I jumped out of the hole, without saying anything to the other officers. I unholstered my walkie talkie and got the Captain on the line.
"Chief, we are going to need the whole show down here. We found about four bodies. It’s a big basement. So there might be more.”
After the call, I stopped in my tracks and went back to speak to the other officers. I called them outside and told them to keep him updated with their progress. I told them that they would have to work through the night.
“If the dead can't go home, then neither do we.”
Throughout the night, I ran the operation with the precision of an archaeological excavation. Police officers and city workers with some archeological experience from the Parks Department worked through the night to recover the remains of the victim from underneath the house.
I stood there in the dark, as the body parts were being carried, packed and ship for evidence. The whole time, I felt that the killings had been going on for some time, underneath my nose.
Finally, the chief showed up.
“Guess what?” said the chief.
“What?”
“Tonight, a couple of beat cops found another black bag not too far from the first and second one.
“Another one?” said Violet. “Shit. One of them has to be me. I know it.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Somewhere along Queens Boulevard.
“What was inside the bag this time?”
“There’s a rumor going around that it is a torso with a hole dug into its chest.”
“Don’t you know, for sure?”
“The FBI took control of the scene and shut us out. They’re pulling rank. You got control down there until they figure out what is what. Which won’t be for long. Find something that I can use to catch this killer.”
It was three in the morning, and I stood there, looking at the men working through the night. There was a team of officers, going through the back yard.
Violet sat on top of the garage looking at the show. There was a bad feeling that I could not shake. The only thing that I knew for certain was that there was a new reality out there.
Never Wake the Dead Page 7
