by J. D. Martin
“I hear that,” commented Pinick as they clinked their bottles together.
The night’s pot moved back and forth between us just as the conversations did, but eventually it was only Pinick and I left in the game while the others watched. It came down to a game of five-card draw. I looked at him and wondered what he could possibly have. Just then, he went all in and stood up to get himself another beer. With the remainder of his chips in a pile at the center of the table and only his back visible to me, I couldn’t tell if he was holding anything real. Reviewing my cards, a pair of jacks and three sixes looked back at me. I figured a boat could probably take him. In fact, the move to get a beer was more than likely covering up any tells that he was bluffing.
“Call,” I said, laying my cards face up on the table as he sat back down with his beverage.
“Damn it, Saint! I got a flush and you still beat me.” He looked at the cards on the table and grimaced. “If I’d had your six of clubs I would’ve had a straight flush too.” Leaning back in his chair, he chugged at his beer with arms crossed.
I raised my bottle to him and smiled, “Better luck next time, pal.” I then downed the rest of it and tossed the empty bottle in the trash. Reaching under the table, I pulled out the steel case containing each player’s buy-in money and shoved the bills into my pocket before filling it with the chips and cards.
With the game over, we cleaned everything up and put the poker table back in the spare room. It was much easier returning it with the help. Considering the amount of alcohol consumed, I called a cab to pick up my guests from the lobby as we each finished the last of our beers. As I bundled the trash to carry to the chute, the building’s concierge called to inform me the taxi had arrived.
Wishing my comrades a safe journey home, and accepting their congratulations on my winning tonight, I walked them out so I could carry the trash down the hall to drop down the chute to the dumpster in the basement. The guys took an elevator down to their waiting cab and were gone when I returned from garbage duty.
Back in my apartment, I went set up the brewer to make coffee in the morning and realized I was out of beans. Waking up without a morning cup was damn near impossible lately, and I didn’t want to be sharp with anyone like the other day, so I decided to take my winnings down to the market to purchase a bag of coffee beans. It was convenient how close I was to groceries when things like this popped up.
Outside on the sidewalk, I watched guys in their early twenties stumbling from the nearby bars back towards the parking garage. The fist-bumping drunkards were rambling about how “hot those bitches were tonight.” Luckily one of them appeared to have his wits about him, so I assumed he must be the designated driver. I was happy to see that they’d chosen to be responsible.
At the store I found the black beans I liked and also grabbed a chocolate bar at checkout. Normally I purchased grounds, but every occasionally, I liked to go with beans that I could grind myself for extra freshness. I opened the chocolate bar on the way home and had just taken my first bite when my phone vibrated. “Saint,” I answered.
“Hey, Alex, it’s Eric. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you earlier, but we had a bit of a meltdown with the servers and I’ve been up to my elbows in that shit all night.”
“Don’t worry about it. I complete understand. Get everything fixed?”
“Yeah, thank god it’s all working now. Anyway, I wanted to let you know we got a hit on that hair from Judge Matthews.”
“Shouldn’t Kathryn be the one calling me on this?”
“Normally yes, but the servers going down had affected her machine, so she couldn’t pull up the data. She’d asked that the second I have access to everything that I call you.”
“Makes sense, so what do you have for me?”
“We got an ID on the hair, and I’ve been told that you’ll never believe who it came back on. A BOLO was released for him and Captain Hawthorne had me place the file on your desk for the morning.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ll look at it first thing.”
“One more thing,” said Eric. “Did you hear about the blood room?”
“No, what is that?”
“The late shift got a tip about a murder, but when they got there they found a room covered in blood without a body. It was surreal.”
Finished with his gossip, Eric said his farewells and I returned my phone to my pocket just as I reached the lobby of 909 Walnut. When I saw who was working the desk that night, I stopped to make small talk. “Evening, Sammy. How’s the wife?”
“Much better, Mr. Saint. She spent a couple days in bed, but it seems like she’s getting over it now. Hopefully she’ll be back at work the day after tomorrow.”
“I’m happy to hear it. Anything else interesting happening tonight?”
“Not really. Some weird looking guy in a Hawaiian shirt is visiting Nora on your floor, but it’s been pretty quiet other than that.”
In her seventies, it seemed odd for her to have a visitor so late. “Is everything ok with Nora?”
“As far as I know; he said he was just checking in on her.”
“Ah, well be sure to give your wife my best.”
“Will do, Mr. Saint.”
Back on my floor, I went to unlock my door when I realized I never locked it when I’d left. It’s funny how a little alcohol can make you forget the little details. After I entered, I set the coffee beans on the counter while I fetched the grinder from the cabinet. After filling it and turning on the blades to chop it up into a fine powder, I started unbuttoning my shirt and walked to the bedroom. The room was dark and there was a strange odor lingering in the air that made me stop in my tracks. The smell had a tinge of rusted metal to it, and after a moment I realized that I recognized it.
Flicking the light switch, I found where the smell was coming from. On the wall near the door was a stain of blood that had been smeared on the wall that read ‘I Am Him.’ In the same instant that I read the words, there was a sharp pain at the back of my head that threw me to the floor as I passed out.
Chapter 19
My head pounded like my brain had been attempting to escape my skull through brute force. I opened my eyes to blurry surroundings that took a moment to come into focus that was better but murky. My senses were groggy but awake, although it seemed the rest of my body wasn’t cooperating yet. The brain was telling everything else to move, but the minions refused to respond. This was not the first time I’d had an instance of the brain waking before the rest of the body. It was a peculiar feeling that could be frightening, but it usually only lasted seconds.
The first time I’d experienced this sort of grogginess was after surgery to repair a broken wrist. In a brief moment of rage, I punched a wall to release my frustration after a bust gone bad. The last laugh went to the wall though. After the anger had subsided, I noticed an odd protrusion pushing up against the skin on the back of my hand. Ends up that I’d punched a stud that snapped my right ring metacarpal out of place near the wrist. Surgery placing pins in my hand reset the bone and it eventually healed. However, the actions cost me five visits to the department shrink.
After the surgery though, I’d come out of the anesthesia mentally before I did physically. This meant I could make out the sounds of the people around me as I lay on the hospital bed, but I was unable to move or speak. Honestly, I was terrified for the few seconds I rested in this state, but it didn’t last long until the rest of me caught up. Although there were similarities to last time, I realized that I hadn’t been to the hospital recently. As the back of my skull throbbed, I tried to remember what I’d done to feel this way.
My mind cleared soon enough with the passing seconds, but the pain remained with me. In front of me was the kitchen and I tried to stand again to get a glass of water, but I still couldn’t move. Nothing from my body was obeying commands, but it didn’t feel like it did after surgery. Looking down, I finally realized that it wasn’t the haze of early wake from anesthesia that had my body frozen in place
but the rope that wrapped across my legs, arms and chest. Shoving my weight forward caused me to rock onto the balls of my feet and then slam back down on the four legs of the chair, which shot pain through my skull that rang in my eardrums.
The sound of my shuffling alerted the intruder in my apartment that I was awake. I heard movement behind me and when I went to ask who they were, I felt the tightness around my mouth formed by duct tape. The strip of sticky goo kept my lips and cheeks frozen in place, so screaming for help was out of the question.
It was all coming back to me as I sat there in my living room. When I’d come back home, my door had been unlocked. My first assumption was that I’d forgotten to latch the door, but now I wasn’t so sure. The houseguest I could hear behind me and off to the left had been here when I returned. It was their actions that had knocked me unconscious. My first thoughts were to open dialogue; see what they wanted. But that was difficult with the sticky situation over my mouth.
Again, my guest was reminded of my presence as I made muffled noises in hopes of bringing them back to me. I needed to know what the hell was going on. Closing a door behind me, the intruder moved some things around before walking up behind me. As they did, my vision suddenly went dark as a hood was yanked over my head. I heard as he went into my kitchen and I jumped when a loud clap sounded that was most likely something dropping on the tile floor. The footsteps became less pronounced as he returned to the carpet of the living area and started dragging something through the room.
The object sounded heavy as it dragged for a second and was followed by quick footsteps and dragging again. The sounds passed along my right side until it dissipated into the bedroom behind me. I heard a muffled thud through the wall as the item was dropped to the floor. I uselessly strained against my bindings again, but all the strength I could muster didn’t make a difference. I wasn’t sure what was in store for me, but curiosity killed more often than not.
The footsteps were back as they came straight at me. I felt a hand grab the back of chair before tilting me back at an angle to drag me across the carpet towards the bedroom. In contrast to my thoughts of escape, I hoped this guy wasn’t ruining my carpet by dragging the weighted legs of this chair across it. Turning me to go another direction, I could feel the person struggling with my weight and the awkwardness of the chair. He cursed openly as he struggled to move me around. That’s when I realized I was definitely going to be forced to replace the carpet.
My seated prison wiggled back and forth as I was shimmied through the door with one of the legs banging against the jamb. Another jerk to the side, and this time it was my knee connecting with it that felt like a screwdriver being pounded into the bone. My pain came out as a muffled moan through the gag.
“You’re fine,” said my captor as he finally acknowledged my state of consciousness. “I thought you’d be out longer but that’s okay.” If nothing else, I now knew the gender of my midnight visitor. “Questions will be answered soon enough, but first I have something to show you.”
The hood was gripped from the top and yanked free, taking strands of hair from my scalp along with it. Sitting in the master bedroom, I was again seeing the blood the intruder had smeared across my walls. It still said, ‘I Am Him’, but that wasn’t the only thing I could now see. Off to my right was a rolled-up rug that must have been what he’d been dragging through the apartment. Strangely enough, it was placed on a layer of plastic sheeting near the foot of the bed. I tried to peer around to see my assailant, but I couldn’t move enough to see his face.
“So, what do you think, Detective Saint?” I let out a few grunts to remind him of something important; my mouth was still covered in tape. “Oh, shit, I forgot.” He gripped a corner of the sticky strip and ripped it from my face. It stung like a mother fucker. “That’s better. So, what do you think?”
“Well, for starters,” I said, “ouch. Secondly, what do I think of what? The rug you brought me or the fact that you don’t feel you need to be invited into my home? I could also mention the creepy, dominatrix vibe you’re giving off by tying me to this chair.” My comment was rebutted with a balled fist arching down over my right shoulder and connecting with my stomach. I coughed uncontrollably at the unexpected gut punch.
“You’ll want to watch that,” he said. “I don’t care for smart talk.” Could have fooled me, I thought. “I meant what you thought of my plan to offer you up to the police as the Blood Week killer.”
The man stepped from behind the chair into my field of vision. With the hopes of surviving this encounter, I etched his face into my memory. I wanted to have perfect recall of every piece of him. He was Caucasian, about 5’10” with thinning cinnamon hair that I could see over the top of the hockey mask he wore. With an average build and gait, he wore dark skinny jeans with a white tank top under a flowery Hawaiian shirt. I remembered the description of this guy from Sammy in the lobby. Looks like the visitor wasn’t checking up on Nora after all.
Sporting socks and sandals to complete his ensemble, I wondered what women thought when they saw him. There were a lot of fashion don’ts happening in front of me; so much so that I wasn’t sure what I should say first. When I give his description to the authorities, should I start with the fashion police? Maybe Joan Rivers could weigh in on it too.
With the mask, I couldn’t see any facial features, but I could make out bits of stubble through the holes in it. From the corner of my eye, I also spotted a large hunting knife straight out of Crocodile Dundee on my bed. “So…” I started slowly, “why would anything you’re doing make Blood Week be associated with me?”
The man in the Jason Voorhees meets Ace Ventura nightmare costume took a few steps closer to the rug on the floor. Leaning over, he started to unroll it, and as he did so I suddenly decided to call him Jason Ventura. It was at least something until I had a legal name to work with. When the rug reached the end of its spool, it opened completely and spit out at my feet.
“You, Mr. Saint, are going to be revealed as the very killer you and your pals have been looking for. The one carving letters into people.”
“So, it’s no longer Detective, huh? Okay, I guess we can forgo the formalities, Mr. Ventura.” The man tilted his head in confusion, but I continued before he had time to inquire about the name. “Why would anybody believe that I had anything to do with that,” I said looking at the dead body. “I’m the detective investigating these murders, and I’m pretty sure the police will take my word over yours.”
“That’s a fair and simple question. You’ve been at every crime scene since the beginning, right? This gave you the perfect cover, but when you went to kill the poor gentleman on the floor, he fought back and you were stabbed by that very blade.” He pointed at the knife laying on the bed.
“You still lack evidence other than the body you’ve brought with you. Who is he by the way?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Fine, then all you’re going to end up with after this half-baked plan of yours is a long stay at a state-funded retreat. That’s prison if you aren’t keeping up.”
“I’m not going to jail,” he said with a grumble.
“Prison, not jail, but that’s just semantics I suppose.”
“My ‘evidence’,” he growled, “was pulled from the other scene you worked today. You know the knife that killed Judge Matthews?”
“Yeah…it wasn’t the same as the other Blood Week murders. It was some sort of hunting knife.”
Jason Ventura looked again at the blade laying on my bed. “And while you were sleeping, I was sure to get your prints all over it. Seems like you’re going to be the perfect patsy.”
“And why is that,” I asked. I did my best to keep the man talking. I didn’t like where his plan was taking aspects of my living through this day, so the more he talked, the longer I had to find a way out.
“I saw you at the Matthews house, so I Googled you.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good enough reason.” Looking at
the body, I again asked, “Who is he?”
“I think you mean who was he, right?” I stared back at him, unflinching at his attempt at humor. “Fine. He was just a man who crossed me, okay? That’s all you need to know.”
I was about to respond when I noticed the bucket on the floor. I’d seen it before I was clocked on the head, but I’d forgotten until that moment. The blood was put on the wall before he dragged in the body. The inner walls of the white bucket were coated in blood that I assumed must have come from the man that crossed him.
“I must say, I like what you’ve done with the place. I’ve been feeling that the walls could use a mural of some sort. The red really captures the room. Are you a freelance artist? I’m thinking I could get you to do more in the rest of the place.”
“Fuck you,” he said. “It sure got your full attention. Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of hot-shot cop? How is it I could break in and catch you off guard?”
“You know what, you’re right, but why don’t we just call it an evening? You’ve had a long day with all your murdering and I could really use some sleep after the evening I’ve had. What do you say we just pick this back up tomorrow afternoon? Better yet, why don’t you untie me, exit the premises, and we’ll leave it at that. Sound good?”
“Yeah, right.” Jason Ventura shifted my chair around to pull me back to the living room. Apparently, that was the end of the conversation. This time around I pulled my knees in to avoid any unwanted collisions with the door jamb. As he worked me back into the other room, I could hear the heavy breaths under the hockey mask.
Plopping me down next to the kitchen island, he returned to his work in the bedroom. Biting my lip, I looked around the room for a means of escape when it nearly slapped me in the side of the head. On the counter next to me was the block of steak knives sitting inches from my head. Salvation was within reach, but it chose to toy with me instead. The blades were right there, but my hands were tied around the back of the chair. I was unable to grab a knife to cut myself free.
