by Jamal Shakur
The map was the first thing that I thought of, primarily because I think he is giving us a heads up as to where he will commit the next murder or multiple murders. Hence, the bits of clues pinpoint pre-colonial Philadelphia. How big the devastation would be is anyone’s guess but in the back of my mind, I was thinking that this could very well be the big one that sums up his contact with us. But the whole thing reminded me of those old time dance instruction maps that people used to use to show them how to dance, you know the ones with the footprints printed on a wide piece of paper and the idea was for the person to follow these footprints in order to learn the newest dance craze and that’s how Sinclair is doing his thing to us but we don’t know where those footprints might lead us; will it lead us to his demise or arrest are will lead us to death and mayhem? Only time would tell.
I received a strange letter from the police chief of Scotland Yard , by the date I received it was almost three weeks after my flight back home. The chief seemed old school and perhaps he felt more secure and wanted the correspondence to be more personal perhaps than an E-mail. The letter a long one but simply stated a few points about the present case, he said that he was reluctant to say anything about the case while I was there but waited for a while and then sent this letter. He simply said that the building that they now reside in long before it was built a torso of a female was found there and that was almost over a hundred years ago and needless to say the case was never solved. It was his contentions that the perp who now calls himself a thuggie, previously tagged himself as the Ripper. He went on further to note that the original Jack the Ripper wasn’t a mass murderer; at most he killed almost certainly about four women and then disappeared. He suggested that my perp probably has the intention of committing a few murders if not one and then disappear from the annals of history. I think if we look at from that perspective than his new protocol might be a hoax but we don’t call it such in detective investigations, instead we call them leads , and I learned that you must follow the leads that you are given or you might be in for big surprise.
Ch 64
We were on stakeout; it was just Omar and I. We decided to follow the perp’s map and begin at the beginning of his directions. We were parked in a sort of a triangle from the liberty bell and the open air cafeteria across from it. We waited but thought this might be a wild goose chase, I was thinking that it couldn’t be as simple as this; a guy of his ego you would think wanted a grand closure to his madness.
It was early in the morning and there weren’t many people walking the streets the normal amount of tourist’s weren’t yet visiting Independence Mall, the cafeteria was opened with one woman inside who had the job of opening up for the day. It was dawn and was still a little dark outside. It was only one lone figure who seems to slowly walk around the block a few times. He seemed to be jogging; he had on grey sweat pants with a white hoodie to top it off.
A jogger early in the morning wasn’t that unusual. He kept up his charade, if that’s what it was. The woman looked and waved at him, of course that didn’t mean that she knew him. But that’s the normal reaction of a business person to be friendly with potential customers. It was beginning to light up as the sun was coming up, I happened to look at him more closely with my high powered binoculars, he seemed to be tugging with a head set which could possibly be a CD player, however all of sudden he glances and peers at me directly and gives me a look as if he recognized me.
It was strange but the so-called jogger disappeared around the corner once again. But this time we followed him. Omar the big man was a little slower than I , I was about ten feet ahead of him but he gained pace with me , while huffing and puffing and nearly out of breath. However, what we seen next seemed other worldly, this was a different perp than the one we were following; evidently there were two of them. The perp was dressed in nineteenth century clothing; he had on a knee length black coat with a cape, accented with a top hat. He had his left hand around a young ladies neck and with his right hand, he displays a scalpel. He was entrenched with what he was about to do that didn’t even noticed the two of us standing right behind him. I had to get his attention before he was about to do his deadly deed. “Alright, Sinclair drop the knife and let the lady go,” I said deliberately. He didn’t reply so I cocked my weapon and so did Omar, as if we were about to shoot.
“How do you like the outfit, Lomax, I got dressed up just for you,” he said with a snicker in his voice that land on the side of more sarcasm than anything else.
“I don’t know about any of that bullshit, drop the damn gun or we will shoot and we will shoot to kill,” I said. I suddenly had a thought this was his last kill and wasn’t going to give up voluntarily, in all probability he would attempt suicide by cop. He was reaching down slowly with his hand that contained the scalpel. I would have to do a head shot, I aimed and used all my meditative power to deliver the shot to the head, and I hoped that Omar would do the same. The shots was delivered , Damn I only snipped him on the side of the head but Omar hit him in the knee cap which made him drop the scalpel and fall to the ground moaning. Omar laughed at him and said, “Shut up bitch I thought you were so tough and mystic ; the big man at times has a macabre sense of humor but I felt what he was saying but not as entertainingly. The whole scenario was mind boggling but it abruptly ended as if it never happened.
Epilogue
“End of the human race is just part of an endless life cycle.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Two years later
After haggling for over two years with the department of homeland security we finally persuaded the feds to let the locale government prosecute Sinclair. They didn’t do this because of some kindness of the heart; it was basically the citizens of Philadelphia and the clamoring from the media around the country who wanted Sinclair to answer for all murderous crimes. There wasn’t any mercy are leniency are long sentencing he was found guilty and was sentenced to the death penalty.
I studied his face as the judge gave out the sentence; he just smiled as if he knew something we didn’t. But to his consternation he didn’t know what was in store for him. The doors to the courtroom flew open and a single file of soldiers armed with ak47’s marched in and stood beside him. I noticed that his face suddenly changed and resembled a dark cloudy mess. He finally realized it was over.
It was all over. Did all the murder and mayhem ever really happen? It all seems like a dream seasoned with subterfuge. We tried to mop up the cult and gather and arrest as many of the members as possible but they had all disappeared. It seems impossible that over an estimated ten thousand followers go up in a puff of smoke to never be found again. However, we had the main ingredient, Sinclair the one who created this madness and gave it flight.
Author’s Notes
Phansigar - an East Indian robber and assassin : thug
http://vampirewebsite.net/vampirebarsclubs.html
http://www.vampirerave.com/db/index.php?category=12
http://spikesvampirebar.tribe.net/
A real autopsy online http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/real-csi-sci
Yakuza (ヤクザ?, [jaꜜkuza]), also known as gokudō(極道?), are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call thembōryokudan (暴力団?, "violent groups"), while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" (任侠団体 or 仁侠団体?, "chivalrous organizations"). The yakuza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza)
