by Tristan Vick
“What?” Julie chirped in annoyance. “That’s total bullshit. They opened fire with illegal, fully-automatic weapons in public and endangered civilian lives. I did what had to be done. And I read them their goddamn Miranda rights just like I was supposed to. I just may have, in not so many words, pointed out their mental deficiency when it came to not being complete and utter rejects of civil society.”
Powers raised her hand and stopped Julie there. “Never mind the charges. They won’t stick. The point is, you can’t keep being the maverick out there. It’s costing the city too much, and the only reason the mayor still allows you to keep your job is because of the strange obsession the city has with your celebrity status at the moment. But don’t think your luck will last because it won’t.”
Feeling uncomfortable, Julie shuffled in her seat, but it didn’t seem to help any.
“Look, Kingston, I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I’m fully in your corner here. But you’re walking on eggshells as it is. One more slip up, and you’ll be working traffic. Even so, you’re still one of the city’s finest, and just like I need my best lawyers working the tough criminal cases, the city needs its best protectors working out there in the nightmare of reality that we call our lives.”
Megan took off her glasses, huffed some steamy breath onto them, and polished them off with a cloth she had tucked inside her jacket. She let out a sigh, put the glasses back on, and continued her lecture.
“Since everyone I’ve spoken with seems to think you’re the best detective the city has to offer, I’m afraid we need to incur the cost of the damages. But I’m asking you as a favor, please, cool your jets. And for God’s sake, Kingston, stop trying to get yourself killed.”
“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
“I would expect nothing less. So here’s the deal. I need you out there to catch the bad guys so I can prosecute them and put them behind bars where they belong. So I went ahead and pulled a few strings and called in some old favors. The Chief of Police had no qualms with my request, so as of today, you’re getting promoted to police lieutenant.”
Julie cocked her head slightly and brushed back her hair back. Eying Powers suspiciously, she asked, “A promotion? Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“As I said, you’re the best investigator we have. We need the best training the next generation of detectives. It’s as simple as that. In order to do that, you need to be in a position to provide leadership and oversee the investigations personally.”
A wide smiled stretched across Julie’s mouth as she flashed her pearly whites. Standing up, she saluted Powers. “Well, then, in the famous words of Alecia Beth Moore, let’s get this party started.”
Setting a box of her personal items on her new desk, Julie paused to look around the excellent square footage of her new corner office. It had one glass wall to look out over the other detectives. Captain Greenblatte’s office was the next office over, and behind her new digs was the break room. She couldn’t have asked for a better spot. The perfect distance for feeding her ungodly coffee addiction.
Turning toward the back wall, she noted that the empty bookshelf and cabinets were handcrafted and nicely integrated themselves into the wall. On the floor sat five cardboard file boxes stuffed full of freshly-printed curriculum vitaes with attached personal profiles of all the potential detective candidates. Julie sighed a long, drawn out sigh, dreading the thought of having to go over a monotonous pile of over-qualified, overly-confident resumes of every super-cop in the city. The captain wanted her recommendations by the end of the week.
Lounging in her office, Julie put her feet up on her desk. Looking up, she watched John Scarecrow enter the room holding two manila envelopes. He handed Julie one of them, and she reached in and pulled out a tabloid-sized sheet. Placing it on the desk, she looked fondly at it.
“Since we can’t formally be partners anymore, I thought I’d give you this parting gift.”
“That’s considerate of you, John,” she said, holding up the photograph for John to see. “But this is a nude glamor shot of Kateland Rameses Beckensale.”
Embarrassed, John quickly retrieved the picture, tucked it back into the first envelope, and then handed her the other envelope.
Julie carefully opened the new envelope and pulled out a small plastic bag containing a silver chain threaded through a silver bullet. Beautifully etched onto the bullet was the inscription rūh iustise.
“It’s Old English for Rough Justice,” John informed her. Julie slid the necklace around her neck and continued to admire its simple beauty.
“It’s gorgeous. Just one question though: Why a silver bullet?”
“The silver bullet represents a simple and seemingly magical solution to a complicated problem. It also represents the only expedient way to kill a Werewolf—an entity of pure evil. Altogether, these qualities seem to sum up your form of justice quite nicely: simple, expedient, and occasionally rough.”
Julie let the necklace slide down between her breasts, where it rested comfortably between her ample cleavage. Looking back up at Scarecrow, she smiled. “Scary, this is the best gift anyone has ever given me. I’m flattered. I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“Speechless is good,” he said, satisfied that his gift was well received. Before leaving her office, he gave her a simple two-finger salute and was off.
“Wait a moment,” Julie beckoned, catching him before he disappeared out of sight.
John stopped in his tracks, turned on his heel and leaned in, smiling sheepishly.
Julie pointed at the other envelope under his arm. “I want you to frame that photo of Beck and put it up on my wall.”
A surprised look came over John’s face. He glanced up at her wall and asked, “You want to hang a nude glamor shot of a celebrity next to the Declaration of Independence?”
“Would it be the America you and I both love if I couldn’t?” Julie questioned.
“I suppose not,” John chuckled, and he was off again. This time on a mission to find the perfect frame for the perfect celebrity.
Julie was known as a loose cannon, the sort of woman who had a short fuse and a loud boom, and her precinct nickname of “Hot Tamale” was a dead giveaway that she always meant business. This gave her a certain amount of leeway. She could get away with a tasteful nude glamor shot in her office without anyone ever so much as questioning her on it. If they did, she’d simply ramp up the crazy and make them leave feeling that it wasn’t worth the bother.
Suddenly, there was knuckled rapping on Julie’s glass door. Captain Greenblatte poked his head in and said, “I just wanted to say congratulations on your promotion, Lieutenant Kingston.”
“Thanks, captain, my captain.”
Captain Greenblatte waved and continued on down the hall. Julie sat back in her new desk when all of a sudden, Greenblatte poked his head back into the room. “Almost forgot. Coroner’s report is ready.”
“Thanks for the update,” Julie said.
“Also, the Feds will be sending their liaison today, a Special Agent Jersey Blair, to handle the Senator Durrell case. I want you to act according to protocol and try not to ruffle any feathers. Do I make myself clear?”
“Understood,” Julie answered.
“Good,” Greenblatte said. But instead of leaving, he simply hovered in the doorway as if he had something else he wanted to say. Julie watched him hem and haw as if he could not quite remember what it was, or simply didn’t want to remember. Either way, he soon brushed it aside, making the same sweeping gesture with his hand.
“What is it?” Julie asked. “Something bothering you?”
“Oh, what? No, it’s nothing important.”
“Go ahead, Captain. You can tell me.”
“It’s just that if anything should happen to me, God forbid, you’re next in command.”
Shooting him a big wink, Julie just smiled at him. Greenblatte did a double ta
ke and then quickly marched off in a state of agitation.
Julie could sense he was disturbed by the fact that the most volatile and dangerous policewoman on the force was next in command. But as far as she was concerned, Greenblatte didn’t have anything to worry about. Julie felt she was much more effective in the field. In her opinion, being a plainclothes officer working homicides was much more appealing than pencil pushing and having the unbearable hassle of orchestrating an entire precinct.
12
THE DEVIL IS IN HER KISS
Sliding between Jane Doe’s breasts, the razor-sharp scalpel sliced into her cold sternum. Dr. Jean Paul Baudrillard, the coroner, was an elderly man with white, wispy hair and four-day-old grizzle on his chin. A cigarette with an ever-growing trail of ash dangled from his mouth as he made the incision. Some ash broke off and fell onto the body, which Baudrillard promptly brushed away with the back of his hand before continuing the autopsy as if nothing had happened.
“Should you be smoking in here?” Scarecrow asked with concern, viewing the autopsy from the other side of the table. He felt a little perturbed at the lack of respect for the dead, and crossed his recently re-attached arms in disapproval.
Dr. Baudrillard looked up at Scarecrow ever so subtly, gazing at him beyond the burning ember of his half-smoked cigarette. Ironically enough, a no-smoking sign sat on the wall directly behind him. With a cold sort of bedside manner, he reassured his onlooker not to worry.
“It’s not like she’s worried about secondhand smoke, cuz’ if you’ll observe,” Baudrillard looked down at the deceased prostitute, “she’s already dead.”
“I merely meant it seems a little bit disrespectful to show such disregard for the dead.”
“What do the dead care if I smoke over their rotting corpses?” the doctor asked, shooting John a cold glance from under a silvery lining of bushy, furrowed eyebrows.
Scarecrow paused, then answered, “I mean, it seems disrespectful, at least to those who may have cared for the person while they were alive.”
“Well, they’re not alive now, are they?” Baudrillard grumbled. “Best they deal with that fact and begin the process of healing. There’s no need to live in the past.”
“No, I guess not,” John replied with a sigh. A sad look came over Scarecrow’s face, which Baudrillard couldn’t help but catch out of the corner of his eye as he was about to continue with his blade. He let out a long, drawn out sigh and looked back up at Scarecrow.
“If it will ease your conscience, Detective, you can ask the deceased victim’s loved ones yourself whether or not they mind depriving an old man of his disgusting habit—a habit forged from years of stress, overwork, and little pay as he slaved away for endless hours in the company of death so that he might find answers that would console the bereaved. Answers that let them have closure so they can finally be at peace and finally let the dead rest in peace.”
“Well, when you put it that way ...”
“You know, I’m glad we had this little talk,” Baudrillard groaned, clearing his throat. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it.”
Scarecrow stood to the back wall, as far away from the wafting smoke as possible, and continued to observe the procedure.
Baudrillard put his dwindling cigarette out in the basin of a nearby bedpan that rested on a nearby cart. John nodded with the realization that that was what the bedpan was for, since it made relatively little sense for the dead to have use of a bedpan.
“Instead of wagging your chin like a bobble-head,” interjected the doctor, “why don’t you grab a fresh pack of smokes out of my inside jacket pocket for me?”
Scarecrow proceeded to reach into the jacket and pull out a pack of Marlboro Reds while the doctor opened up the sternum of the deceased victim, slid in a clamp, and pried open her chest until her heart was in broad view.
Scarecrow couldn’t help but feel awkward as he watched the doctor slide his hands into her chest and skillfully remove her heart.
Baudrillard held up the heart as if he were offering it to Scarecrow, then scowled. “Where’s my damn cigarette?”
Scarecrow tore open the packaging and tapped on the box, allowing a single cigarette to rise up out of the package, then held it toward the doctor, who leaned over the dead body to fetch the extended cigarette with his lips.
“Do you ever find it sad,” Scarecrow found himself asking without intentionally meaning to start up a conversation, “that someone so beautiful should die so tragically?”
“I find it sad,” grumbled Baudrillard, “that people like you have to ask such questions in the first place. As if the preciousness of life wasn’t already precious enough.”
Motioning with his head, Baudrillard said curtly, “There should be a lighter in the right-hand side pocket.”
Scarecrow searched through the large jacket pocket until he found a metal object and pulled out a Zippo lighter. He was about to hand it to the doctor but suddenly froze as he looked fearfully at it.
“What are you waiting for?” Baudrillard frowned, the unlit cigarette dangling on his bottom lip.
“You see,” Scarecrow began, an obvious hint of nervous fear in his voice, “fire and I don’t tend to get along so well.”
“I’m not asking you to swallow a flaming sword here,” Baudrillard quipped. Holding up blood-stained latex gloves, Baudrillard said, “All I’m asking for is a damn light.”
Scarecrow cupped his leather-protected hand around the cigarette lighter and lit up the doctor’s cigarette. Once smoke began to rise, Scarecrow quickly clamped the metal lid shut and hopped back, slowly making his way to the back wall.
Viewing the porcelain-white skin of their Jane Doe, Scarecrow felt the urge to say something. “The Japanese believe life is a lot like the blooming of the cherry blossoms, called sakura. Basically, our lives are like that of cherry blossoms, radiant but short-lived, quickly fading into the seasons and out of existence. Some may find it sad, others may see it as sanguine. I supposed it’s a little of both. But that’s life.”
Baudrillard paused for a moment, letting the thought linger, and almost began to smile—almost. Relapsing back into his grumpy old self, the doctor said, “Now if you don’t mind, Aristotle, I’d like to get back to my job.”
Jersey Blair, a tall blonde with short, bobbed hair and long legs in a short black skirt, cut in front of Julie, edging into the morgue first. Julie rolled her eyes in exasperation and followed after her. One thing was for certain; Feds were always the same. By the book and on time.
Stepping up to the body on the table, Jersey brushed her black blazer down, smoothing out the wrinkles, and asked, “What do we have here?”
Dr. Baudrillard put out his cigarette in the nearby bedpan and grumbled, “What does it look like? It’s a goddamn dead body.”
Julie smiled. “You’ll have to pardon Special Agent Blair,” she said. “She’s with the FBI.”
The doctor’s face remained unimpressed as he reached over and grabbed the chart on the end of the exam table, then handed it to Special Agent Blair without saying a single word. Jersey inspected the report but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She quickly handed the chart off to Julie to inspect.
Baudrillard peeled off the crimson-splotched latex gloves and threw them in a nearby dustbin. He walked over to the sink and washed his hands with special sanitizing soap while Julie looked over the chart. After washing, Baudrillard pulled another pack of smokes out of his jacket and tapped on the pack until the tip of a fresh cigarette budded, then kissed it up with his lips. Pulling out a gold lighter, he held it up to his mouth, but just as he was about to light up, Julie spoke out.
“Crotalase?” Her eyes were as big as saucers. She recognized the MO, but she couldn’t believe he was back. For starters, she knew that the perpetrator responsible for the string of hiker’s deaths was serving time in California’s state penitentiary. This had to be something new, which worried her.
Looking at the doctor with a
blank expression, Jersey asked, “What is Crotalase?”
Baudrillard ignored Jersey’s question and addressed Julie instead. “Not only that, but over seven-hundred milligrams with a toxicity of LD-50, which would lead to a lethal neurotoxicity, causing respiratory failure and tachycardia.”
“C. adamanteus has a venom yield and toxicity that high.”
“C. adamanteus fits,” the doctor replied. “But so do a handful of vipers and a few types of cobra.”
“Snakes? Are we talking about venom?” inquired Blair, feeling worsted by Julie’s intellectual performance. “So you’re saying she died of a snake bite?”
“No,” growled the doctor, impatient as usual. He continued on with his diagnosis. “I think she has all the pathophysiological signs of having died of snake toxins except for one small problem.”
Julie remembered her examination of the body at the crime scene earlier and quickly filled in the rest. “Except for the fact that there is no snake bite.”
“There’s not a mark on this body,” Baudrillard informed. “But check this out,” he said, grabbing the deceased victim’s bottom lip. He pulled it back and revealed a tenderized area. “At first, I didn’t make anything of it. There’s nothing unusual of a woman in her line of work to show signs of tenderness from, how shall I put it, intense foreplay. But then I decided to swab the area anyway.”
Once again, Julie picked up on the clues. “Oral transmission of the venom?”
“Exactly,” Baudrillard replied, finally lighting up. He then took his cigarette between his fingers, took a long, deep drag and blew out a haze of smoke.
“How is this even possible?” inquired Special Agent Blair. “That would mean whoever poisoned her would have to have poisoned themselves first? It doesn’t make any sense.”
