A witness told James that it was like the bag appeared from nowhere. It always happened sometime during the night.
Honestly, James didn't see an end to this case. The girls were gone and they wouldn't be coming back. It was Violet that he was concerned with, even though things between him and Charlene haven’t been getting any better.
Walking on the sidewalk, he sometimes imagined a trail of body parts flowing down Queens Boulevard and leading him to the killer. As more time went by, the further he was from finding them. For a moment, he thought that they could be dealing with a serial killer. But no one saw anything. It was as if those black plastic bags came from the sky.
Out in the field, James was familiar with the residents of the neighborhood because he was from the neighborhood. The officers were so impressed by how the businesses opened their doors to James, that they joked around with him.
"With that kind reputation, Detective, you could become a city council member if you wanted to. It would be good to get one of our guys in that position.”
James just smiled. He hated politics.
By the middle of the afternoon, Detective James Night didn't gather much useful information. There was no physical evidence or drops of blood that the hounds could sniff out. On the street, the trail went cold.
In the afternoon, James turned his attention to the three missing women that the Chief assigned to him. He only found three facts that connected each of the three women. First, all three missing persons were female. Second, all three missing persons routinely passed by Queens Boulevard, on their way home. Third, all three disappeared sometime between sun down and sun up. That was all that Detective James Night could come up with, only he spoke with those closest to the victims.
The three women disappeared as if they were snatched right off the sidewalk. It could have happened anywhere between the Queens Boulevard and their home.
The Engineer. The Hoarder. The Swimmer. They were real women of flesh and blood, with families and friends who cared for them and wanted them back. It struck James that all of these disappearances occurred to women living within the immediate vicinity of the Calvary Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in the country.
James hated to admit it. But maybe, Violet was right. Maybe, it was his calling to finally face the cemetery and listen to the dead for a way to catch the Beast.
The first missing person was a professional engineer who just moved into one of the newly built condos along Queens Boulevard.
Her name was Laura Hernandez and she lived right across from the cemetery, by herself. She had a boyfriend, named William. But, he didn't come over that night.
Detective James Night met William in front of Laura’s apartment to interview him. Laura and William went on several dates. He said there was connection between them, even though they had known each other for about a month. When she went missing, William didn’t even have a picture of her. So, he took a picture of her from Facebook and attached it to the missing person's report.
Laura was a good looking woman and she reminded him of Charlene. They both had the same wavy black hair and light eyes.
The same evening that Laura disappeared, she went out for a run after work. It was her usual routine. Her boyfriend didn't think much of it. This time, she stayed out the whole night and never came back.
William and Laura were suppose to meet again for lunch the following day. When she didn’t show, he thought that she was just busy with work.
William called her later in the day to make sure she was okay. But, there was no answer at her desk. The secretary told him that she was not at work yet. He tried to reach her at work again. This time, the manager told him that Laura never called in to let them know that she would not show up.
William began to worry.
After work, William broke into her apartment. When, he opened the door to her place, he found no one there. Her purse was still on dinner table, exactly how she left it the evening before. She left everything, her phone, cards and money.
As William stood in her empty apartment, he called the police to report her missing. He was filled with grief, as he told James, "Please find her. Please. I just want her back home. I want to know that she's safe."
James answered, "I'll do what I can."
James understood that this disappearance wasn’t normal. Laura wasn’t troubled or running away from something. She was loved by all who knew her.
The claws of the Beast have sharpened, James thought.
The second woman to disappear was the Hoarder. That's what the beat cops around her house called her. She lived half a block away from Calvary Cemetery. Her granddaughter, Sarah Garcia took care of her from time to time. James went to meet Sarah to find out a few things about the old lady who lived in an old dilapidated house in a forgotten part of the neighborhood. The old woman was an artist and had lived in that house for a pretty long time. She had seen the neighborhood transform before her very eyes. She was there, when there was only farmland in Queens when the cemetery contained only a hundred thousand headstones. Now, the cemetery held three million. Her house was the only one that survived a century of progress.
Her granddaughter, Sarah opened the door and welcomed James into the house. She was a girl in her late twenties who went to LaGuardia Community College.
Immediately, James understood why the picture of a hoarder came to mind with the other officers. There were piles of newspapers scattered throughout the first floor of the house that came up to his waist. However, the piles were organized and placed into neat rows.
She wasn't really a hoarder.
The cops didn't care to understand that she was a paper-machete artist. She used newspapers to make masks and human sculptures that were almost life like.
It was amazing how real they looked. The old woman used acrylic paint to bring the faces to life. This isn’t the passion of mad woman. James took a few pictures of several masks that hung on her living room wall.
“My grandmother stopped making masks about a year ago. For some reason, she started up again,” said Sarah.
“And what happened a year ago.”
“My grandfather died.”
Then, James saw a mask of wolf tossed in the corner of the living room. James bent over and picked it up to examine it.
“I have always hated that mask,” said Sarah.
James brought the mask to the lamp where the eyes and mouth glowed with light.
“Strange,” said James.
“What is it?” asked Violet.
James thought of the Beast when he looked at the mask. Was this the same mask that the Beast wore standing on the roof of that abandoned house.
“God knows what made her create that thing.” said Sarah.
”What happened to your grandmother? What made her start making masks, again?”
“I don’t know. My grandmother hadn't made anything since my grandfatherfather died. It wasn’t until the last month that she started collecting newspapers and keeping them in these big piles. I thought she was preparing for a new project.”
"In the report, it says that your grandmother went to get groceries and she never came back. You didn't notice that she was gone, until the following morning.”
"Yeah. I always give grandmother her pills in the morning and I know that she liked to go out at night for walks.“
James's eyes wandered down the hallway of the house. For a moment, he thought he saw someone staring back at him. It was another black mask made out of paper machete. this time the mask had horns.
"Mr. Night?”
"Yes? I'm sorry. Go on."
"Well, I walked into my grandmother's room with a glass of water and her pills. That's when I found my grandmother's bed empty, perfectly untouched. Immediately, I went around the first floor looking for her. I thought that one of these piles of newspapers could have fell on her. She could have been buried underneath and not been able to get out. I started to blame myself for not getting rid of them. I looked eve
rywhere in this house and could not find her."
"How do you know that she disappeared last night?"
"Her walker was gone from her room. Usually she goes out to the front porch in the evenings after her walk. I do all the shopping for her. in the morning, I found her walker in the front porch and the door opened. Since she was getting older, I thought that she just forgot to close the door. So, I waited out on the front porch for her all morning. But, she never came back.”
Sarah was writing a book about her grandmother. She confessed that her grandmother had become a bit eccentric, after her husband died a year ago. But, her grandmother was a good woman.
"Please find her, Detective."
Again, James found himself staring at the horned-mask at the end of the hallway. He told Sarah the only thing he could, “Of course. I’ll do the best that I can.”
13
Goddess of the Rainbow
Violet thought about Iris, the Goddess of the Rainbow, another flower throwing herself against the ragging night. Iris stood next to the East River in Queens, looking at the lights of Manhattan turning on. To Iris, she saw a constellation of stars.
Violet kept her eyes on Iris as the final rays of the sun receded behind the cold dark skyscrapers. As the sun disappeared, the night began.
Iris heard the horn of a car that called to her. She made the sign of the cross and turned around to see a car coming down the street. The car pulled up, the door slid open and she jumped inside the back seat.
The next moment, Iris was gone and the van continued along the East River.
Detective James Night was driving and a black female police officer sat in the back.
“Everything will be fine, Iris. Luella told me that you are a little scared,” said James, looking through the rearview mirror and smiling at her. “If you start getting nervous, remember to remain calm. We are going to be close by. I promise. All you have told do is identify the Coyote that worked with Violet.”
“Nervous about what?” Iris asked.
James ignored her response, as he drove through the park. The night was here and it was getting darker. In the back seat, a female police officer secured a mini microphone and GPS device underneath Iris’s black bra. The device also monitored her heart beat.
“Nervous about what?’ Iris asked again.
“Answer her James,” said Violet. “Do you really have to do this to her? She’s not going to get you any closer to the Beast.”
“She’s the only lead we have,” said James.
“What did you say?” asked the black female officer in the back. “I’m doing this as a favor, James. But don’t mess this up with any of your crazy talk. I know about you. Shit. The whole precinct station knows about you.”
James smiled through the rearview mirror.
“The truth is. We don’t have the slightest idea who is behind these disappearance or killings. You told me also that someone scared you one night, while you were on the stroll.”
“It’s true. He drives a white mini-van.”
“Just help us identify the Coyote or the guy who assaulted you and I’ll honor my half of the deal.”
“That’s what I wanted at first. But, I don’t think so any more.”
“What do you mean, Iris?”
James eased on the break, stopped the car and pulled over on the sidewalk.
“As long as you pay me, I don’t care anymore. I’ll work for you, as long as you pay me.”
James nodded.
Iris opened the door of the car and stepped onto the curb in her purple dress. She walked toward the stroll, which was under the Queensborough Bridge.
This time Violet followed Iris throughout the night.
Violet sat in the shadow of the bridge looking down at Iris working the Stroll. She watched as Iris stood their having a cigarette, waiting for the next john. There was still no sight of Violet’s Coyote or the man that Iris said attacked her.
Meanwhile, Iris waited ten or twenty minutes for any one to come by and sweep her up. From time to time, she would get into a car and leave. Twenty minutes later, she was back on the corner, standing under the viaduct of the Queensborough Bridge.
Violet watched Iris and could not believe that this was once her. For a moment, it brought her to tears. The whole time, the Beast was out there, watching her.
Violet looked around at the trees rattling in the night, wondering, if he was out there.
Halfway through the night, a group of girls tried to start some shit with Iris. But she was pretty smart.
Iris told them, that she was protected. She tried to tell them about the serial killer, but most of those girls had no clue that a murderer was snatching girls off the street. They didn’t care or didn’t know how to read. Either way, any one of them could be next. They were gambling with their lives, she told them.
After a short argument, Iris got their attention and directed their eyes to the opposite end of the viaduct. In a dark shadow of the street, there was James behind the wheel. She told them to keep watching the car. Then, she flicked her lighter twice and the car responded by flashing its highlights twice. Once they saw that Iris was protected, they left her alone.
It wasn’t until two in the morning when a green mini van came by the Stroll and parked on the corner. Iris looked at the man behind the wheel. From the street, he looked like any other john looking for a girl.
As Iris walked across the intersection, she approached the car and saw his face. At that moment, Iris thought about giving James the signal. However, something went sour in her stomach and she did not know why. The closer she got to the car, the better she made out his face, especially his eyes. His eyes were cold and blue and they enchanted her. He wore a pair of black glasses across his face. The longer she longer stared at him, the more fear grew in her.
Iris should have given James the signal. Instead, she jumped in the passenger side. He drove her down a dark side street, to a spot that she had been to before. Along the way, Iris glanced at the driver, but his face was covered by a deep shadow. When she looked at him again, she saw that he wore the black mask of a wolf. It appeared from thin air over his face.
Violet sat in the back seat, where there were empty cans of beer and boxes of cereal. What’s wrong with this guy? Violet thought. She felt that something might be wrong. Like Iris, she felt like she could not move or talk.
Iris was paralyzed in the front seat, unable move or at least scream for help. The whole time she was scared. She wondered why he did not talk. Iris tried to look at him, out of the corner of her eye. But, she was only able to make out his dark mass.
As the car passed a couple of warehouses, Violet looked outside the car window and saw a man walking in the street, alone. He was a large man wearing a black hood. When the car was closest, the man pulled off his black hood revealing his face and the mask was the face of Beast.
It was him.
Violet turned around to yell at Iris to get out of the car, as it rolled onto an empty parking lot.
“Iris!”
Violet reached out to her. But her hand started to disappear. Suddenly, her whole body flickered and started disappeared too.
Then, everything went black.
When Violet reappeared, she was now in the back seat of James’ car.
“James!” called Violet.
James woke up, “Violet? When did you get back here. I though you were going to stay with Iris.”
“I don’t know.
“Shit,” James wiped some drool from the corner of his mouth.
“I was in the back of that guy’s car when something happened. Somehow, I materialized back here. We have to get her now. She’s with the Beast now. We have to go get her. Where is she?”
James looked at his watch to make sure the tracking device was still functioning. Then, he looked at the time.
“Oh my God.”
An hour had elapsed from the time that Iris left with her last john and now. The tracking device was still work
ing and she wasn’t too far away. But, there was no heartbeat. Still groogy, James set the car in drive and pressed on the gas and sped off toward Iris.
James Night drove the car down a side street for Iris’s location.
She wasn’t too far, James thought. She was up ahead in the large empty parking lot. There were plenty of dark places in there. James saw the mini-van parked in the middle, with its car doors open.
James and Violet stepped out of the car to investigate. The car was empty and Iris was gone.
“I told you to stay with her,” James scolded Violet.
“I did.”
“Then, where did Iris go? Fuck. We ended up with zero, tonight.”
“I told you not to use her,” said Violet.
James flashed her a mean look. Then, he wondered why he was about to argue with a ghost. It didn’t matter.
“Shit!” screamed James, his voice echoed throughout the parking lot.
James got back into the car.
“Where are you going James?” asked Violet.
“All I can do tonight is look for her. Your were right. It’s my fault. At least, I can do that.”
James struck the hood of the car. “damn it!”
“You knew that was going to happen. But, you put her in jeopardy anyways,” said Violet.
James drove away, leaving Violet in the parking lot by herself. The whole night she wondered how the Beast made them skip time like that.
14
A Garbage Bag on the Street
Every morning in Queens, the hydraulic compactor of a garbage truck flooded the neighborhood with a harsh sound that woke up the neighborhood. It did every morning. But this time, there was also the nightmarish scream, a sound that would become common during these long nights, if James fails.
Never Wake the Dead Page 10
