Linda was screaming. Reed was coughing up blood. Jennie was dead. Malcolm . . . was enjoying himself . . . and just getting started.
V.
“Reed! Reed!” Linda screamed, as her husband writhed on the floor.
“Oh, I’d almost forgotten about you, dear.” Malcolm discarded the empty Jennie carcass on top of her battered father and stalked across the room to where Paul still held onto Reed’s beautiful Barbie-doll wife. Linda began struggling and crying, screaming out for help.
“Don’t tire yourself out, sweetheart. This might take awhile and you’re gonna need all your strength. I’m gonna fuck you to death!”
“Pleeeeeeeeease.” Reed whispered hoarsely, vainly, from beneath his daughter’s corpse. Her heart was still pumping blood out of a dozen wounds. The grief, the horror, overwhelmed him and his mind shut down, staring as the man with his face handed his wife over to Malcolm, but really seeing only a wall of gray with eerily familiar shadows doing a bizarre and disturbing pantomime. Then everything went black.
Reed struggled desperately to free his mind from the dense miasma that had descended over it, to stay in the present, but his mind kept retreating into the safety of the past, of playing in the sandbox, climbing the monkey bars, singing old pop tunes. It was a peaceful place, a safe place, a place where Linda wasn’t screaming.
Linda? Where is Linda?
Reeds’s mind shook free of the cloud and his eyes rolled around the room in a panic. In between Linda’s screams and sobs, he could hear animalistic growls and grunts. When his eyes locked on the source of the pandemonium, his heart dropped and his stomach lurched. Malcolm was raping his wife and staring right at him. He wasn’t just raping her. He was mutilating her, ripping into her with those bizarre silver fangs. Reed struggled to rise but something pushed him back down and he felt cold steel press against the back of his skull along with the unmistakable sound of a shotgun round being chambered.
“Don’t move! You have no idea how much I’d love to kill you.” It was the man with his face.
On the other side of the room the savagery was escalating. Linda’s screams were horrible as Malcolm tore chunks out of her breasts with his teeth, tearing off and spitting out each nipple. He was snarling and growling, still thrusting himself deep inside her, when he ripped her throat out with his teeth and began to chew. He was cannibalizing her—eating her alive. He brought the knife up . . .
“Nooooooooo!” Reed weakly screamed.
. . . and slashed open her chest, sawing through her sternum. He reached in and cracked her ribs open like an oyster shell, grabbed her heart in his fangs and savaged it free from her chest. Reed was in shock. This was the most horrible thing he had ever seen and he knew why it was happening. He knew that he had brought this horror down on his family. This was all his fault.
The black vampire was grinning at him again. Blood was dripping from his fangs, down his chin, neck, chest. He was still chewing on Linda’s heart, then, horribly, he swallowed.
“Are you still my best friend, Reed? Are you still going to look after Renee’ for me? You going to be my brother-in-law?”
Malcolm was undoubtedly a monster and Reed was certain that he had created him.
Dr. Frankenstein I presume?
VI.
Detective Titus Baltimore refused to let the old timers see him gag. He knew that his partner was watching him, waiting to see if the tacky, red-black blood that formed a huge stain on the salt and pepper Berber carpet, the meaty copper smell, the children, the woman, would be too much for him and he would have to pray to the porcelain god. True, he had never seen a murder this horrible up close. Not one this . . . grotesque . . . this savage and barbaric. The unsub who did this bore scarcely any resemblance at all to the rest of humanity. But Titus choked back the scalding bile that was rising in his throat and focused his eyes to clear away the spots, forcing himself to check the little girl’s mercilessly butchered corpse for fibers, hairs, any clue to the man who had done this.
CSU already had the entire room covered in silver latent print dust and the forensic photographer was flashing pictures so fast it created a surreal strobe-light effect that gave the crime scene the look of a carnival horror show. But these weren’t wax dummies. The grotesque wounds were not made with latex and stage blood.
The CSU boys kept glowering at him as they vacuumed for hair and fiber and picked buckshot out of the drywall with tweezers, carefully placing them in plastic zip-lock bags. Titus knew they had a pretty good Crime Scene Unit, but he still wanted to check the scene himself in the hope that he might catch something the lab boys missed. He knew they hated anyone else working the scene but them. They always bitched about contaminating evidence, but this was his case and he probably knew as much about forensics as they did. Besides, there was more than enough evidence to go around. The place was littered with it.
At twenty-five, Detective Baltimore was the youngest homicide detective in the Philadelphia Police Department. He was a prodigy who graduated from high school at thirteen, received a Ph.D. in Forensic Psychology from Princeton at eighteen, and made detective by the age of 21 after only two years on the street. After this case was over, the FBI would no doubt recruit him to investigate serial murderers full-time. It was what he had always wanted. He just knew everyone resented him. They called him a kiss-ass, a brown-noser, said he hadn’t paid his dues, that he had risen to the top off a high-powered education paid for by his rich daddy, and by knowing the right people and saying the right things. They were right . . . and he didn’t give a fuck. Why should he walk a beat rousting teenaged hookers and drug dealers when he didn’t have to? He closed just as many cases as they did without their years on the street getting shot at and beaten up by crazed junkies and he would close this one, too.
Titus couldn’t believe his luck. He was about to solve one of the worst serial killer cases in Philadelphia history. If what he was hearing was correct and all three cases were linked, the man who had savagely beaten, raped, murdered and mutilated the Cozen family was responsible for more than two dozen murders dating back fifteen years. The frenzied over-kill, the stabbing, the cannibalism, the sexual assault, it was the same signature he had seen over and over again. The “Pine Street Slasher” who had murdered fifteen gay men between the summers of ’90 and ’95. The sadistic butcher they called the “Chaperone” who had raped and vivisected young women and their boyfriends between ’95 and ’99. And now the killer who beat, stabbed, and partially cannibalized six entire families who the press had dubbed the “Family Man.”
Could they all be the same man?
Ifthis new information was correct, they were all the work of one psychopath. The same monster shot little Mark Cozen with a shotgun at point blank range. The same sick fucker who hacked little Jennie Cozen to pieces while her mother and father watched then raped and vivisected Linda Cozen and ate her alive.
The crime scene was scattered with enough physical evidence for a dozen convictions. Footprints, teeth impressions, semen, pubic hair, even bloody fingerprints on the murder weapon still sticking out from what was left of Mrs. Cozen’s chest. And he had a witness, a survivor, who could not only give a description of the murderer but the killer’s name as well . . . Malcolm Davis. This case was solved, and “Tight Ass” Titus Baltimore was certain that he was about to be a hero.
“How can you be sure it was him? I mean, you hadn’t seen him in fifteen years before tonight?”
“We were best friends in high school. I remember him.”
“Well, you’ll excuse me for saying this,” Detective Baltimore surveyed the carnage that surrounded him, “but this doesn’t look too friendly.”
“We had a falling out. Years ago. Back in high school.” Reed was in shock. The EMS technicians were trying to explain to him why they couldn’t tape his shattered ribs while they bandaged his busted nose in place and pumped him full of painkillers. Detective Baltimore was trying to pump him for details.
“So he kil
ls your family but leaves you alive? Did he say anything to you? Besides confessing to having killed all those people?”
“He told me that I’m the only one he’d let catch him. He told me not to get the cops involved because they couldn’t stop him. That it was just between him and me.”
“Well, like it or not, we’re involved and we’re going to catch this bastard. I promise you. There will be justice for your family.”
Detective Baltimore was the worst kind of asshole, the kind that knows he’s a little shit but doesn’t care. He could see that Reed didn’t trust him. That was going to be an obstacle. If he couldn’t get Reed to trust him, getting information from him would be difficult.
Titus was used to distrust. He dealt with it every day on the job. There was too much swagger about him. His clothes looked too expensive and he was too young and cocky. To most people he looked like a con man, a politician, or a stand-up comedian rather than a cop. He was a pretty boy, and it was obvious that Reed hated pretty boys, especially pretty boys with authority. But Titus didn’t care. He didn’t care that Reed’s entire life had been ruthlessly undone. He was only interested in making a name for himself in the department by solving the crime of the century. Reed knew it and Detective Baltimore knew he knew it and didn’t give two shits.
“Okay, do you mind if we go over the whole sequence of events step-by-step so I can get it clear in my head?”
“Yes, I do mind! My family is dead! Fuck your report. Just go catch that bastard!” Reed nearly passed out from the exertion of screaming. Titus leaned forward to catch him but Reed shrugged him off then winced and swooned again.
“Jesus! My fucking ribs.” His eyes looked dazed and unfocused. He blinked several times and shook his head as he doubled over and held his ribs with both arms. Titus was certain the man was about to either lose consciousness or lose his dinner. He had to lean on one of the EMTs to keep from falling off the gurney into a pool of his wife’s blood. Titus sighed and tapped his foot, not sure if the man was really in that much pain or just putting on an act so he wouldn’t have to talk anymore.
“Sorry, Detective. We need to get this man to a hospital. He may have a concussion and his blood pressure is dropping. There may be some internal bleeding.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. I guess this can wait until tomorrow. We’ve got enough to go on so far anyway.”
The EMTs laid Reed back onto the gurney and wheeled him outside. Reporters were already crowding the sidewalk, swarming like flies over carrion. Titus followed the EMTs out to get his moment in the media spotlight. When Titus walked out, the first person he saw was Lieutenant Woo, the official head of the Family Man Task Force.
Woo was a figurehead. His job was mostly to handle the media and give them clever sound bites that painted the PPD in the best possible light. He hadn’t stepped one foot onto the crime scene, but he was out there talking as if he personally had the whole case wrapped up. He made repeated references to his team and his taskforce. The press looked bored and annoyed. Apparently, they didn’t buy his act either. Baltimore had been running the investigation long before the task force was established and, in spite of the so-called task force, it was still his show and everyone knew it.
“Detective Baltimore! Detective Baltimore! What happened here? Are they all dead? Is it the Family Man again? Do you have any suspects?”
“You can get rid of that Family Man tag. I’ve got a better name for you . . . Marcus Davis. He has been positively identified and we will have him in custody before the sun rises. I promise you that. Now if you’d excuse me, I have an investigation to conduct.”
He turned and strode back into the house, ignoring all the questions and secretly patting himself on the back for how well he’d handled the ghouls. Always leave them hungry for more. And there would be more. There was still the arrest and the trial. Titus would make certain that neither Lieutenant Woo nor some hot shot DA would steal his glory. He would make sure the press knew what an airtight case he’d handed the District Attorney’s office, a case that a monkey could win.
Yeah, he would put it just like that, “a case that a monkey could win.” That should make sure that credit went where it was due. He laughed to himself. They had given him this case because no one had been able to solve it so far, and they figured the hotshot detective would do no better. They were all standing around waiting for him to fall on his face. He showed the fuckers.
The eight-man task force that was assigned to the “Family Man” murders, led by Lieutenant David Woo, who everyone called Big Bird because he was Chinese and nearly 6’8”, had not done a damn thing. Officially, Titus and his partner, Detective James, were part of the task force. Unofficially, they were the task force. The others were just legmen, gophers, and backup in case they needed it. They were good for running down leads, cataloguing phone tips, and doing follow up research, but when it came to the crime scene investigations and interviewing suspects and witnesses, Titus wanted the other detectives as far away as possible. Lieutenant Woo wasn’t a problem, either. He only showed up to do TV interviews and get daily progress reports on how the investigation was going. He was still out there with the press, trying to put in the groundwork for a run at the Police Commissioner’s office. Titus understood the man’s ambition. He had ambitions of his own.
After nearly a year of work on these killings, the case had solved itself and two other serial-killer cases still on the books. Malcolm Davis. As Titus thought about the cases, he began to see the pattern. It was a downward spiral, a degenerative cycle. The increasing number of victims, from single men to couples to entire families, was a sign of control loss. It was like a drug addict progressing from smoking weed to snorting speed to smoking crack. The killer had developed a tolerance and needed more and more violence to satisfy his addiction. That explained the multiple victims and the increasing savagery of the attacks, progressing from stabbing to cutting to dissection to biting and, finally, to cannibalism. The killer was out of control and making mistakes.
In all the other murders, he had been careful to leave no physical evidence. He wore gloves to hide his fingerprints, and wore a condom to avoid leaving his DNA traces in his semen. He cut up the bite wounds to make it impossible for the police to cast the indentations to match against dental records; a remote possibility, but one that proved “our boy” was careful. They even suspected he vacuumed the crime scene to remove hair and fibers. But now he had left more evidence then they knew what to do with, had attacked someone who knew him and could identify him, and then left that victim alive. It was too good to be true.
VII.
Detective James Bryant didn’t believe the Cozen family’s murder was connected to the Family Man. At 45-years old, he had seen a lot of horrible murders, but the Family Man was by far the worst. This bastard was careful, cunning, evil. He didn’t buy that degeneration, self-destruction, downward spiral bullshit. This wasn’t a guy who wanted to be caught. If he did, he would have been leaving clues all along—notes, taunting phone calls, any evidence at all. But the monster had never left them anything. It was the total lack of physical evidence that had marked his crimes as unique. It was what had first gotten Detective Bryant to thinking all the homicides were linked. That and the fact that the male victims in each case—the Pine Street Slasher, the Chaperone, and now the Family Man”—all bore a remarkable similarity to each other. Of course, no one listened to him. He didn’t have his partner’s fancy Ph.D. and high-powered IQ. All he had were his twenty-seven years on the force and his instincts. Right now, his instincts were telling him that there was definitely something wrong with this latest twist in the case. Killers like these didn’t self-destruct all at once. There would have been signs that he was starting to slip, that he was getting sloppy. The murders would have started coming closer together; they would have gotten more and more random, and there would have been little mistakes here and there. But the murders had stayed two or three months apart, and they had stayed absolutely perfect. Th
ey had certainly grown more savage, but even that was predictable. Still, there was an element of control, a calculated, premeditated design to the crimes. This one just didn’t add up.
He watched the crime scene guys going over the scene with tweezers, zip-lock bags, Dust Busters, brushes and silver latent print powder. The forensic photographer was taking his grisly photos from every conceivable angle. Tight Ass was staring at Linda Cozen’s half-eaten heart, peering into her vandalized chest cavity, trying to impress everyone with how calm and detached he could be. Detective Bryant only smiled and shook his head. He could see how pale the man had gotten and how his hand shook when he scribbled on his little pad. The cold sweat was another dead giveaway. How to deal with the smell of a corpse disposing of its waste products was something they didn’t teach you in Criminal Psychology 101. Detective Bryant walked outside. For once he was convinced that the answers were not to be found in the crime scene evidence. The answers were lying in a hospital bed at University Medical.
The forensic boys were busy doing their thing, so James decided to leave them to it and wait for the report. The Medical Examiner had just arrived, looking appropriately somber. Tight Ass was still poking around the corpses looking for God knows what. All this would be fine for convicting the killer once he was caught, but it wasn’t going to help catch him and that was all James was interested in. The fingerprints would help confirm the witness’s identification, but James was pretty sure they had a good suspect. Malcolm Davis.
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