Wild Night is Calling

by J. A. Konrath

  Oh…sweet lord…no…

  Another gut-wrenching moan shuddered through the room.

  “No no no no no…” The words thrust from Caitlin’s chest on a wisp of breath. She focused on her friend.

  From the bed, Hannah glanced up and looked straight through her. A smile curved one corner of her lips. She held up the knife, its blade dulled with poor Josh’s blood. “We said we were going to have a wild night, right? To celebrate? I’ve been doing so well.”

  Next to Caitlin, Zach made a strangled noise deep in his throat. Shock widened his eyes and slacked his jaw.

  Caitlin knew what he was feeling. Like it was a dream. Like nothing he was seeing was real. But it was real. Too real. No one knew that more than she did. And seeing the faraway look in Hannah’s eyes, so much like the last time, Caitlin recognized that once again she was the only one who could set this right.

  She reached into her bag. Her fingers brushed the iPhone, and then dipped into the zipped pouch sewn into the purse’s lining. She pulled out the loaded .22, buried the barrel among Zach’s soft blondish curls, and squeezed the trigger.

  Part 2

  Officer Dettwiller pulled up into the driveway and parked his cruiser. Thompson at Dispatch has gotten the 911 call, and it had taken Dettwiller four minutes to get from the other side of town to this sleepy, tucked-away residential area.

  Lake Hubbard had a population of less than forty thousand, and as a result, serious crimes were usually few and far between. But in the last eighteen months there had been more murders than in the past twenty years combined. Nasty ones, too. Some of them even had parts missing—parts the coroner theorized had been consumed by the perpetrator. Or perpetrators; some of the crime scenes pointed to a pair of killers, working together.

  This quaint little Wisconsin town had become quite the dangerous place to live.

  Dettwiller picked up the radio and brought the mike to his face. It smelled like the chili-cheese dog he had for lunch, reminding him he hadn’t eaten dinner yet.

  “This is car six-fiver. I’ve arrived at the four-four-two. Over.”

  “Proceed with caution, six-fiver.”

  Caution indeed.

  Dettwiller hung up the mike, unsnapped the top button on his holster, and extracted himself from the patrol car. There were two other vehicles in the driveway, and Dettwiller unclipped the Maglite from his belt and directed the beam through their windows. One had its doors still open. Both were empty.

  The night was still, quiet except for the ever-present buzz of mosquitoes. He slapped at one that had begun feasting on his neck, and then aimed the flashlight at the house.

  A two-story Victorian. Green. Pretty, but just your regular single family dwelling, not unlike the one Dettwiller had grown up in. Wholesome, white bread, small town.

  But Dettwiller knew from experience that things that looked normal on the outside often hid terrible secrets.

  Like crazy cannibal killers, he thought.

  He played the light over the front door, saw it was halfway open.

  Thompson had said the call was from a distraught teenage girl. If the teen could be believed, there were two dead boys inside.

  The chances of that were slim. A more plausible explanation was the caller had taken drugs or had been drinking, especially with Summerfest in full swing. Either that or this was some sort of joke or prank. Dettwiller had done a few things as a teen he hadn’t been proud of. Hell, he’d done things as an adult that shamed him. Things he’d never tell Molly, or his kids. Why, just last month, he’d been getting off his shift and—

  Dettwiller’s flashlight beam caught some sparkly, jagged glass. A broken window. His apprehension kicked up a notch. Was this a B & E? Or could there actually be some bodies on the premises?

  The front door swung inward. Dettwiller quickly drew his sidearm—a 9mm Sig Sauer—and thumbed off the safety while lifting the weapon. When his Maglite illuminated the person opening the door, Dettwiller knew this was no prank call, no regular old breaking and entering.

  The girl in the doorway was covered, head to toe, with blood.

  She was Caucasian, five-six, late teens, in jeans and a tight tank top. Her blond hair was matted and clung to her round face. Bits of tissue peppered her top. The girl’s jeans were so soaked with blood they looked black. Dettwiller couldn’t tell if the blood was hers or not.

  After the preliminary shock, training took over and Dettwiller covered her with his weapon.

  “Police! Hands where I can see them, Miss! Now!”

  Despite her appearance, the girl seemed extremely calm. She slowly tilted her head to the side, and then raised her hands.

  Empty.

  Then another girl appeared beside the first one. Same race, same age, a bit heavier and taller and wearing a short skirt. She also had blood on her, but only a few splotches. When Dettwiller saw what the second girl held, his adrenalin spiked.

  “Drop the weapon! Now!”

  The new girl flinched, and then immediately tossed the gun onto the grass beyond the porch.

  “Keep your hands up! And both of you walk to me! Slowly!”

  They complied, though as they walked, the girls clasped hands, their bloody fingers intertwined above their heads. When they were a few feet away, Dettwiller ordered them face-first onto the lawn. He holstered his gun and gave each a thorough pat-down. Neither seemed injured. No weapons, and no ID. But these were girls and girls had purses, and Dettwiller would bet a weeks’ worth of donuts their purses were inside.

  “It was self-defense,” said the less bloody one, her cheek in the grass. “They attacked us.”

  “You the one that called 911?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are two dead boys inside the house?”

  “Yes, we didn’t have a choice and—”

  “Was that your gun?”

  “My daddy gave it to me, for protection.” Her voice had begun to crack. Dettwiller figured she was barely keeping it together.

  “Okay, Miss. What are your names?”

  “I’m Caitlin Olendorff. She’s Hannah Freese.”

  “Can you talk, Hannah?”

  “I want to change my clothes.” Unlike Caitlin, Hannah’s voice was emotionless. Dettwiller wondered if shock was setting in. If it hadn’t yet, it would be soon. For both of them.

  “Caitlin, I’m going to put you and Hannah in my squad car, where it’s safe. I need to go inside the house and look around.”

  “Please don’t leave us,” Caitlin said.

  “It’s okay. I won’t be long.”

  He helped them up, getting blood on his hands in the process. Putting them into the backseat of his cruiser resulted in more blood, everywhere. Dettwiller wondered about the DNA evidence, but figured it would be okay. The thing he needed to worry about right now was securing the scene.

  He left the girls locked in his back seat, and then opened his trunk. In a kit he had alcohol wipes. After getting the blood off his hands, he snapped on a pair of latex gloves, grabbed some evidence bags and shoe guards, closed the trunk, un-holstered his Sig, and went to go do his job.

  Dettwiller’s first stop was the gun Caitlin had tossed onto the lawn. He picked it up, weighing it in his palm. A .22 Taurus, small enough to fit in a purse. He made sure the safety was on, dropped it into a plastic bag, and shoved it into his pocket. Then he began to approach the house.

  In his seven years on the force, Dettwiller had only worked four murder scenes. He was patrol, not a detective. Rather than be assigned cases, one had to fall into his lap during his shift. The first two were murder-suicides: one an unemployed husband taking out his frustrations on his wife; the other a known drug addict who apparently had had enough of her children complaining they were hungry. The third was a tavern brawl that had gone too far. In the movies, actors got up after being hit with a bar stool. In real life, not so much.

  The last murder Dettwiller had worked had been one of the slasher vics. Technically it was the se
condary scene; where the victim had been dumped, rather than where the victim had been killed. Dettwiller had been lucky—or rather unlucky—to have gotten the Dispatch call when he was only two blocks from the discovery. If Dettwiller lived to a hundred twenty, he’d never forget walking onto that open field, looking at that naked, dead boy, cut from his crotch to his throat. It had been the single most surreal moment in Dettwiller’s life.

  Weapon extended, he approached the front door with trepidation. Dettwiller kept his finger alongside the trigger, rather than on it. He’d never been forced to fire at a human target while on the job and didn’t want to accidentally kill someone because of nerves. And he was definitely nervous. Going into a strange house, alone, one that two blood-drenched girls came out of minutes before, was a scene from a horror movie. But he didn’t want to let his edginess lead to a mistake. So he took it slow, safe, and by-the-book.

  He peeked through the broken window, checking to make sure the entryway was clear before slipping through the door. The foyer was well lit. Bloody, smeared footprints formed a path across the tile.

  “This is the police!” Dettwiller yelled. “Is anyone on the premises?”

  There was no answer.

  Using one hand, Dettwiller removed a shoe guard—a plastic cover that went on like a shower cap—and stretched it over his right foot. He tugged another guard from his pocket and repeated the process with his left, keeping his eyes on his surroundings and his gun out the entire time. He found one of the girls’ purses and picked it up, winding the strap over his shoulder. Then he cautiously followed the trail of blood spatters, walking down the hall to a carpeted staircase.

  “This is the police!” Dettwiller repeated. “We are armed! Is anyone upstairs?”

  He waited a moment, got no reply, and took the stairs slowly.

  That’s when the odor hit him.

  The smell wasn’t dissimilar to a butcher shop. But sharper, more acrid. The stench intensified with each step Dettwiller took.

  He knew that odor. It was the reek of violent death.

  When he reached the second floor, Dettwiller’s stomach was jumping all over. He wiped his mouth, swallowed, and walked to the bedroom. It was the source of the smell, and where the blood trail ended.

  The first thing Dettwiller noticed was a boy, dead on the floor. There was a bullet exit wound where his right eye used to be.

  The next thing Dettwiller noticed was the bed. He hadn’t known a human being could bleed that much.

  Dettwiller didn’t get close enough to see which of the multiple knife wounds had been the killing cut. From his cursory look, it could have been any of the few dozen that turned this young man into something that more closely resembled a gigantic lasagna than a human being. He noted the position of the body, spread-eagled, and scrutinized the victim’s arms and legs.

  Taking a step away, Dettwiller felt something squish underfoot. He looked down. Though his expertise in human anatomy was limited, he recognized the object to be a kidney.

  Shuddering, Dettwiller crouched down, used a gloved hand to place the organ in an evidence bag. He also found the other girl’s purse, and wound that over his head. Then he got the hell out of there.

  When he made it back to the squad car, he was out of breath, and his heart was beating like a heavy metal drum solo. The girls stared at him, wide-eyed and fearful, still clutching hands.

  How could two sweet little things like this have done something like that?

  Dettwiller stripped off his gloves and shoe guards and put them in a bag in the trunk. After getting a bit of composure back, he settled into the car on the driver side and closed the door.

  “You want to tell me exactly what happened?” he asked through the steel mesh partition separating the front and back seats.

  Caitlin launched into it. “We were out partying, and we went home with these two guys. Hannah was in the bedroom with Josh, and he attacked her. Right, Hannah?”

  Hannah stared straight ahead, her expression blank. She managed a slight nod.

  “She started screaming. I tried to go to her, but the other boy, Zach, wouldn’t let me. When I finally got away from Zach, I ran to find Hannah, and she’d gotten the knife away from Josh and… um… you saw. Then Josh attacked me, but I had my gun by then and I shot him.”

  Dettwiller rifled through their purses and found their driver’s licenses. They’d told the truth about their names.

  But he was sure that was the only thing they’d told the truth about.

  “I counted over two dozen stab wounds. That’s quite a lot of self-defense.”

  Caitlin returned Dettwiller’s stare. “Hannah has had some trouble in the past. She’d been attacked before. When it happened again, she did whatever was necessary.”

  “Where’s the rope she used to tie his arms and legs to the bed?”

  Caitlin didn’t answer. But she blinked several times.

  “He had ligature marks on his wrists and ankles. I’m guessing the rope is somewhere on the property. Maybe the garbage. Maybe you threw it in the trees out back.”

  “I think we need to speak to a lawyer,” Caitlin said.

  “I think so, too. Especially since that boy Zach was shot in the back of the head. That doesn’t look much like self-defense, either.”

  Dettwiller picked up the radio mike. “This is car six-fiver. Finished with the four-four-two. Going to hang out on Milton, see if I can’t catch some speeders. Over.”

  He set down the mike, and then dug his cell phone out of his pants. “Thompson, this is Dettwiller. Can you talk? I got the girls. Good move, sending me here. Did you erase the call? Good. I’m taking them to the shed now. I’ll save one of them for you, for when you get off your shift. Let me tell you, these are some foxy little ladies. We’re going to have a lot of fun with them.”

  Caitlin banged her fist on the mesh partition.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Dettwiller smiled. “Same thing you girls just finished doing. ‘Cept me and Thompson are planning on taking our time.”

  He started the car.

  “But you’re a cop!” Caitlin yelled.

  “I am. And that’s why this is such a sweet set up. Thompson at Dispatch filters the calls and sends me to ones where I can pick up some sweet young thing. If everything checks out, I pick her up, we have our fun, and discard the body.”

  “You’ll get caught,” Caitlin said. “There’s evidence.”

  “I don’t leave evidence. And I can remove all traces of your being in my car in ten minutes with a spray bottle of bleach. I’m not nearly as stupid as you two. Which of you braniacs decided to call 911? Why didn’t you just flee the scene?”

  “Caitlin called,” Hannah said, her voice flat. “She helps me.”

  Dettwiller shook his head. Amateurs.

  “Let me take a guess. Hannah’s prints are on file, and the gun can be traced back to you. Rather than run, you thought you could bullshit the cops. Christ, girls, don’t either of you watch CSI?”

  “But you called about a four-four-two!” Caitlin said. She was close to hysterical. Which was good. Dettwiller liked the hysterical ones.

  “I called in a four-four-two. That’s a break for food. Which was a little white lie. I picked up some food, but I didn’t eat it yet.”

  Dettwiller pulled the evidence bag from his pocket and opened in, taking a sniff of the fresh kidney. His mouth began to water.

  “Beats the hell out of donuts.”

  As Caitlin screamed, Dettwiller backed out of the parking lot. He wondered, obliquely, where he’d dump the bodies when he and Thompson were finished with them.

  Then he settled in to eat.

  EXCERPT from FLEE, a thriller novel by J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson, coming soon.

  “Whenever possible, avoid engaging the enemy,” the Instructor said. “If engaged, run. Fighting should be your last resort. Patriotism has its place, but it costs millions of dollars to train people like you. You’re
more valuable than the mission. If things go sour, flee.”

  This is fun I typed. Then I hit enter and waited for the reply. It popped up on my computer screen a moment later.

  No pressure, but are we ever going to meet IRL?

  I took the last sip from my bottled water and tried to ignore the jitter under my rib cage. In real life. He assumes I have one.

  I tossed the empty over my shoulder without looking. The sound it made confirmed I’d hit the garbage can.

  How do I know you’re not some lunatic stalker? Or even worse, weigh eighty pounds more than your jpg?