“It’s primitive,” she said.
“Even we allow a small gathering to witness an execution.”
“We do it humanely,” she said. “Cleanly, none of this medieval nonsense.”
“The Gunpowder Plot was an audacious plan but ultimately failed because somebody squealed.”
“What’s new?” she scoffed.
“If ya ever gonna commit treason, work alone, that’s my advice.”
“I will,” she said mock-earnestly, making me laugh.
Ruiz’s Architect Partners, 3rd Street, Santa Monica, CA 90410 – 17:30.
We’d tracked down Doctor Ruiz’s estranged husband. We pulled up at his office block. It appeared he was an architect and a successful one judging by the address and the surroundings. I spotted the brand-new Porsche in his allotted parking spot, right next to the main entrance, to show everyone who’s the boss. We entered the foyer and strolled up to the receptionist. He wore a well-cut suit, far too expensive for a receptionist’s wage, along with orange-framed glasses. I guess he was trying to make a statement.
“Yeah, I’m a raging homo,” Elvis said.
He was right of course. He was a fussy little thing, very slender and very out of the closet. He noticed us and pursed his lips and cocked an eyebrow. I hitched my shirt and flashed my badge attached to my belt and he was completely unimpressed. I told him we were there to see Mister Ruiz and I just knew we were in for a confrontation.
“He’s busy right now, with, er, a client.”
Client. Right. I went to push past him when Mia beat me to it. She rounded the desk and the boy jumped up outraged, obviously not used to having his authority messed with. “I really must protest –”
She held him roughly by the face and poked hers right into his. “This is a Homicide inquiry, you mincing, little fruit!” She glowered at him with a hostility beyond his unhelpfulness. “Do you want to be booked for obstruction?” She pushed him by the face back into his seat but he missed it and sprawled onto the floor. He went to speak and she glared at him. He opened and closed his mouth like a guppy but nothing came out.
As we stepped over him, I whispered, “What was that about?”
“I hate AIDS-spreading queers.”
She never failed to surprise me. I pushed open the heavy oak door without knocking and caught Mister Ruiz, an overweight man in his fifties, dressed like someone twenty years younger, kissing a pretty, young blond, who was at least half his age.
“What is the meaning of this?”
I showed my badge. “We’re here about your wife.”
“Ex-wife. Well, soon to be,” he said, making sure the blond heard as she climbed from his lap, straightening her dress. I caught a glimpse of a tattoo at the top of her thigh. It was the tail of a snake. God knows where the head ended up.
Ruiz asked, “What has she been up to now?”
“We’ll come back to that. More to the point, what were you doing?” I asked, smiling at the blond.
“Miss Woods is my personal secretary –”
“So I understand.” I grinned at Mia.
“And she’s also my fiancée, so what?”
“About your wife,” I said again.
“Ex-wife. What’s she done now, the stupid bitch?”
“Not a lot, why?”
“She’s nothing but a pain, I wish she was dead.”
“Now that is interesting,” I said to Mia.
He looked from Mia to me and back again. “Look, are you going to –”
I cut him off. “Are ya suffering from mid-life crisis?”
His face flushed angrily. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, ya know, the new flashy car, the new flashy girlfriend.”
“Hey, it’s up to me how I live my life. My car’s gorgeous.” He grabbed his secretary to him and said smugly, “And my girlfriend’s hot, don’t you think?”
“Well, yah, she’s alive, at least, unlike your wife.”
Mia shot me an angry look.
I made a ‘what have I done?’ face.
“People skills,” scolded Sheldon. “People skills.”
I said, “Now, ya were saying how ya wanted ya wife dead?” I gave him my best smirk. “Oh, by the way, did I mention we’re Homicide detectives?”
He looked flustered and I noticed the blond move away from him. So much for loyalty. “Look here, I loved my wife –”
“You just called her a bitch,” Mia reminded him.
“That was a figure of speech –”
“You wished she was dead,” she continued.
He waved his hands around for help. “Am I a suspect in her death?”
The blond moved further away.
Mia got in his face. “She was a victim of the Hangman, I’m sure you’ve read what that entails,” she said flatly.
His face drained of color. “Oh no, oh my God, no.” He licked his lips and asked, “What do you want from me?”
Mia said, “We need to know what clubs you attended together?”
“What do you mean?”
“You may want to have this conversation in private.” She nodded to the blond secretary.
“Miss Woods stays.”
“Very well,” Mia said with a smile. “We need to know what clubs you attended of the adult variety.”
He squirmed in his seat. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“This is no time to be coy. This is a Homicide investigation. Now answer the goddamned question.”
“We may have attended the more, um, alternative private party.” He flicked a quick look at his secretary who was almost out the door. “This was more her idea, you understand?”
Mia nodded to urge him on. “Go on.”
“We used to attend private parties, up in The Hills.”
Now, this information was interesting.
“Is that what the Hangman’s about?” he suddenly asked. “Is he targeting those who follow an alternative lifestyle?”
“It’s just one lead of many we’re looking into,” Mia lied. “Now, the address if you please?”
He gulped a few times, then said reluctantly, “Bruce Matherson’s place up in Beverly Hills.”
Bingo! I grinned to Mia. She put away her notebook and we made to leave.
The blond asked, “Are we safe?”
I said, “That would depend.”
“On what?”
“Have ya pierced your clitoris?”
CHAPTER 26
Mia’s Chalet, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90046 – 21:30.
Mia could not stop laughing as she invited me into her home up in the canyon. “Have you pierced your clitoris?!” she chuckled. “What sort of question is that to ask a lady?”
“It was a legitimate question,” I said with a shrug.
I went over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and once more I was blown away by the view over LA. I was awestruck by the lights stretching down to the airport and out to the beach. I went out onto the balcony and could hear the coyotes: they sounded remarkably close as if they were just below the balcony. I knew they wouldn’t attack humans but it was still a creepy noise, making me think of being attacked by a pack of wolves. There was a bad smell out on the balcony and I wondered if the wind was in the wrong direction and maybe blowing across from the dumping ground of the murdered bodies across the canyon. I stepped back inside and shut the French doors to keep the smell out. Mia poured us both a Californian Merlot, we ‘clinked’ our glasses but were in no mood to celebrate, knowing what we were about to watch. She switched on her computer and we reluctantly settled down in front of her computer monitor. Ferdy’d had the good sense to record the Hangman’s taunting post to the precinct and had sent it on to all our home computers. We were about to watch what happened to Candy after we left on our disastrous rescue attempt.
Mia fast-forwarded through to the hanging scene and Candy’s inspired but as it turned out futile signaling to us, although it led us to the slaughterhouse and that may throw up
a clue to the Hangman. I turned back to the screen, as Mia returned the image to normal speed, just as Candy emitted a blood-curdling scream that sent a shiver up my spine. “Can we turn the sound off?” I asked.
“We might miss something,” she said.
“Just for the first viewing.” I drained my glass and she immediately refilled it. I steadied my nerves and nodded for her to start the recording. We watched horrified as the Hangman slit Candy down her middle. I saw her face contort and never wanted to hear the painful howl she made and was glad that the powers that be had made a rule not to investigate our own – it would be too harrowing. I was having trouble now and could feel Mia’s eyes on me and steeled myself to continue watching. The Hangman held up a vile-looking implement, showed it to Candy and then showed it to the audience watching at home. What did those viewers get out of this? Did it turn them on? Were they masturbating to this? I just didn’t get it. On the screen the Hangman used the claw-like implement to drag out Candy’s intestines, which glistened under the lights; they coiled and wriggled from his grasp as if they were alive and he tossed them onto the nearby grill, causing a puff of smoke to obscure the scene momentarily. I hoped Candy had died but it appeared their removal did not cause instant death. I saw her move her head from side to side. The Hangman picked up the next tool, showed that to the audience at home with all the flourish of a stage magician and then showed it to Candy, whose eyes widened. I hoped she would soon pass out from blood loss. I couldn’t make out what organ he removed next and casually tossed onto the grill, but Candy went limp and at least her torture was over.
I gritted my teeth as the Hangman delved into her stomach cavity and chopped away, tossing the random organs onto the grill, like a mechanic under a hood tosses parts over his shoulder without a care. I could see the various organs sizzling on the grill when the Hangman addressed the camera. Mia went to press sound but I said, “Not yet. . .”
He turned away sharply, making his cape swirl in the air before he picked up a long-handled chopper and severed Candy’s head off in one swift move. I felt the room swimming before me as I felt a wave of nausea rising in my throat. This was strange because I was known for my nonchalance: it did not matter what had happened to a body before, I could take it in my stride, but this was happening to someone I knew. I realized that she was dead and couldn’t feel it but there felt something fundamentally wrong for a head to be detached from the body. I knew many faiths believe that a corpse must be whole to pass on. In years gone past the beheading was the final insult to a prisoner as it was thought the soul could not rise to Heaven it the head was removed. The Hangman continued chopping and sawing in his defilement of Candy’s remains. I swallowed my wine in one gulp. Mia refilled our glasses as we watched in horror at the final insult – the quartering. Candy’s limbs were stretched thoroughly throughout, and I now realized that these were the attachments we saw near the ceiling of the storage facility. I knew what was going to happen next and wondered if we needed to see it. I thought from a professional point of view that I should and if it had been any other victim then I would watch, so I had to. I sneaked a peek at Mia to see how she was coping and there were no outward signs that she was suffering any ill effects by the whole episode. She was a good cop keeping it bottled up for now and would suffer later when on her own, so as not to lose face in front of me. I found her remarkable, a natural; she would go far. If she was this good as a rookie there was no reason why she couldn’t rise all the way to the top. I braced myself and concentrated on the screen. The Hangman had started the engines and I saw the ropes tighten further as Candy’s limbs stretched to capacity. The Hangman stood out of shot, I guessed not to be covered in the exploding flesh. Her body lifted from the dissecting table as the four pulleys went to work, we saw her body tighten under the tension and then . . .
POW!
She was ripped into four pieces, amidst an explosion of red blood and guts. One piece of flesh hit the camera, knocking it from the tripod.
“Jesus,” Mia muttered slowly.
“Yah,” I said even quieter.
She used the remote to switch off the recording. “Well, I know I’m only a rookie but I think I can say without fear of contradiction that I will never see anything like that again.” She stood and stretched her back; I saw her profile outlined by the lights of Hollywood in the distance below. She truly was a beautiful woman. She should be modeling or acting. I know that she had tried that and had quit not finding it satisfying, but with those looks . . . maaan, what a waste.
She opened the French doors, then shut them almost immediately and wrinkled her nose. “Whoa,” she said.
“Does that happen often?”
“What?”
“I thought the smell was drifting up from Hollywood?”
“No, never had a problem before.”
“Or maybe it’s drifting over from the dumpsite, or one of those damn coyotes has dragged something putrid over from there.”
Her cellphone rang and I saw the color drain from her face. “Which channel? Okay.” She switched off her cell and fumbled with her TV remote. The wall-mounted 50-inch flat-screen burst into life. Mia switched channels until she found the correct news channel. The blond anchorwoman had a suitably somber look on her face and said, “The grisly discovery in Arizona today, where park officials found a severed head skewered on a spike upon the bridge at Lake Havasu City, in Arizona. We’re now going live to our on-the-spot reporter, Luke Jacobs.”
The reporter stared intently at the camera and said excitedly, “Unconfirmed reports have it as the removed head of Los Angeles Detective Candy Myers. Although the L.A.P.D. won’t confirm the story, there is little doubt about it: her beheading was shown live on the internet and has gone viral around the globe. A sad indictment on the world in which we live. The Hangman is satisfying the sick yearnings of a jaded population who claim to have seen it all and need more and more gore to appeal to their desires.” The camera panned past the reporter to show a silhouette of the back of Candy’s head: there was no mistaking it. The reporter continued. “Reliable sources have informed us of the execution on the internet today, where the serial killer, known as the Hangman, has been plaguing the Los Angeles district, and had ritually followed the hanging, drawing, and quartering to the letter. The cherry on the cake, if you will, is the displaying of the severed head on a spike on London Bridge and he has even accomplished that. As you may or may not know, the old London Bridge was dismantled back in 1967 and transported over here where it was reassembled as a tourist attraction. We’re told that the police in LA are utterly clueless and –”
Mia switched him off. “Can it get any worse?”
I was speechless and shrugged.
“At least we have a day off tomorrow.” She smiled, heading for the stairs. I felt my spirits lift and followed her. We hit the bedroom and she kissed me and I thought we could sleep in late. She took a bottle of champagne from her fridge from beside her bed and handed it to me. I opened the French doors to the bedroom balcony and launched the cork out over the canyon when the stench hit me, making my knees buckle. Mia flicked on the balcony lights and stared in shock at the severed leg dangling from the rafters. Mia came up behind me. I quickly turned to shield her from the sight of Candy’s leg swaying at head height but I was too late and her scream echoed up and down the canyon.
CHAPTER 27
Dawn was breaking and the mist was clearing and it felt like it was going to be another hot day. The crime scene technicians were all over Mia’s balcony and the assumption was that the Hangman had climbed up the outside of her home perched on the edge of the canyon, and adding that to his disappearance from Candy’s building and the dead-end street, we thought we were looking for an extremely fit athlete.
How Candy’s noggin had made it all the way to Arizona had us stumped for a while. We tried to work out the logistics of getting from the murder site to Arizona which was at least a five-hour drive away. We thought that the Hangman must have
chartered a private plane, as money seemed to be no problem, yet that would have left a paper trail, although I assumed the Hangman would have used a false name and if he spread enough cash around, flight plans and manifests had a way of disappearing. Mia trembled in shock and I hugged her close; we no longer cared who knew about us, whatever will be will be, although the tech guys were too busy to care about an office romance. The captain’s arrival caused a stir and he stomped into Mia’s home, looked us up and down, frowned but had more pressing issues. He looked tired as if he’d been woken from a deep sleep. Officially, like us, he was off duty but he was there for one of his team, even a brand-new rookie like Mia: it showed he had some class. He took a call and his face dropped and his eyes fixed on me and I just knew what had happened. He switched off his cellphone and looked at me.
“Don’t tell me, I’ve got one, too?” I said, knowing the answer.
He nodded. “Her left arm, tied to your balcony.”
Ferdy shook his head. “That is so sick. We’re dealing with an extremely deranged mind.”
“Who else has one?” I asked. I thought more of Candy’s torn-off limbs were unaccounted for.
A thought struck the captain and his face sagged. “Get a car over to my house. Pronto!” Mortified by the thought that a limb may be dangling outside his home and that his wife or God forbid one of his kids might see it. If one of them saw it, they’d be in therapy for life.
The captain stormed out with a bunch of yes-men scurrying after him as he left to check on his own home accompanied by two squad cars.
CHAPTER 28
Saturday – July 2nd
I was off to see the new shrink, which I knew would be a big, fat waste of time but I had to go through the motions: it was that or lose my job. Mind you, I was only just holding onto that. I parked outside the shrink’s office and suddenly had a flashback of seeing my father hanging. I was the one who found him. I was ten years old and my life changed overnight. One moment enjoying the companionship of my buddies, little league and digesting all the statistics we could find on baseball, football, even basketball. Or just cycling around the neighborhood without a care in the world, usual childhood stuff; next I was staring up into the mad, staring, bulging eyes of my father.
On The Edge Page 25
