Progeny
by:
E.H. Reinhard
Copyright © 2015
All Rights Reserved
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction by E. H. Reinhard. Names, characters, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Locations used vary from real streets, locations, and public buildings to fictitious residences and businesses.
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Progeny: Cases of Lieutenant Kane Series, Book 5
Tampa homicide lieutenant Carl Kane has led up grisly crime scenes before, but this one is different—it’s identical to the remains left thirty years prior by a man who had whipped the city into chaos.
But Jack Redding, or as the media called him, The Quilter, had been put to death in the nineties. These murders are the doing of a copycat—someone with inside knowledge of the original crimes.
As the bodies pile up, the motivation for the killings and the connection shared by the victims become clear.
Kane must race around the clock to find the person—or persons—responsible for recreating the work of the most heinous murderer Tampa has ever seen.
Little does Kane know his path will lead him to one of the most horrifying scenes he’s ever witnessed. In his line of work, and after recent events, that’s saying something.
The Lieutenant Kane series:
Malevolent
Requite
Determinant
Perilous
Progeny
Denouement
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prog·e·ny
[proj-uh-nee]
noun: a descendant or the descendants of a person, animal, or plant; offspring.
Chapter 1
Carmen and Angel pulled into the last available spot in the Green Gardens parking lot. They’d entered the complex through a service entry as to avoid the guard in the guard shack at the front. Angel’s silver Ford sedan reflected the evening sunlight off its hood and roof. She lowered the windows, shut the car off, and stretched back in the seat. The bubbling of the pond’s fountain and the talking of senior citizens throughout the grounds were the only sounds.
“How much time do we have?” Angel asked.
“Five minutes or so,” Carmen said.
“It’s always the same time?”
“Yeah. Every day.”
Angel ran her hand through her long dark hair. She let out a long breath. “I wish Daddy was here. I wish he talked to me, like he does to you.”
Carmen smiled. She rubbed the side of Angel’s face. “He’ll talk to you soon, baby.”
“That’s what you always say. I think he just doesn’t want to.”
“That’s not it. Your father loves you.”
Angel turned her head toward Carmen. “If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have left me.”
Carmen’s face went stern. She grabbed a handful of Angel’s hair and yanked. “Don’t you speak of your father like that. He didn’t have a choice. Understand?”
“Yeah, ouch, geez.”
“Do you understand?” Carmen asked again.
“I said yeah.”
Carmen let go of Angel’s hair. “You know better than to talk like that.”
“Sorry, Mama. I just… I just want to know him like you do.”
“You will. As soon as this is done, we’re both going to meet him. He told me he’d be waiting.”
“I know. What about Cynthia?”
Carmen scowled. “What about her?”
“Will she be there?”
“She’s in hell where I put her.” Carmen snorted. “Try to take my daughter…”
“But she was daddy’s wife. Won’t he want her there?”
“No. That’s final. Don’t bring her up again.”
“Sorry.”
“Whatever. Get out and go get ready. He’ll be coming any minute.”
“Okay, Mama.” Angel got out and walked to the front of the car. She leaned back and sat on the edge of the hood.
“Is he coming?” Carmen asked.
Angel looked back over her shoulder and saw Carmen climbing into the backseat. “I don’t see anyone.”
“He walks the same route every day. He should be there any second. Just keep watching.”
Angel looked at her watch. “It’s already a little after five thirty. Do you want me to go look for him?”
“No. Stay put, baby. He’ll come.”
Angel turned her head forward and looked at the pond. Cattails sprouted from the water. Beyond the pond was a tree line of oaks and palms. Birds walked the edge of the water and pecked at fish or frogs or whatever birds pecked at. The large fountain sprayed three streams of water twenty feet into the air. Angel focused on the sidewalk and rear door of the assisted-living complex. An old man approached, twenty feet away. He wore a tan long-sleeved shirt with gray slacks. A white key card hung on a red cord from his neck. His black Velcro-strapped shoes shuffled along as he walked. The man was mostly bald with a little bit of white hair on the sides. Large glasses wrapped his eyes.
“Is that him, Mama?” Angel asked.
Carmen poked her head out from the rear door of the car. “Yeah, that’s him. Just like what we talked about.”
“Okay,” Angel said. “Sir?” Angel called. “Excuse me, sir?”
The old man fumbled with the key card hanging around his neck, preparing to let himself into the back of the building. He stopped and looked over at Angel, standing at the front of her silver sedan. “Yes?” he asked.
“Could you do me a huge favor?”
“What’s that, miss?”
“Could you do me a quick favor?” she asked again, more loudly.
“A favor?” he asked.
“Can you hold this car door for me while I get my mother out? She lives here. She had surgery on her knee and needs help getting out.”
He looked over, crouching to get a look at the woman in the back of the car. “What was that?” he asked. He squinted, trying to get a better look.
“Could you just please help us. Please? It will just take a second,” Angel said.
“You need help?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Sure, I can help.” He slowly shuffled down the sidewalk toward the car. He began wheezing and fumbled through his pocket until he produced an inhaler. He neared Angel’s car. “Sorry, I don’t hear as good as I used to. You said you needed some help?”
“Just some help getting my mother out of the back.”
“Help a woman in distress, huh?” he said. He chuckled and looked at Angel. “It will be my good deed for the day. What can I do?”
“I just need you to hold the door here. It keeps trying to shut.”
“Okay.” As the man rounded the front of the car, he put the inhaler to his mouth and took a puff.
“Thanks so much for helping,” Angel said. “Just hold the door here while I go around to the other side.”
“Sure,” he said.
Angel walked to the back of the car. She looked around the parking lot and saw no one in sight. “Do it now, Mama!”
Carmen reached out for
the old man through the open door. She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and yanked him into the car. The inhaler dropped from his hand and landed on the floor of Angel’s sedan.
Angel ran back to the rear door and pushed the man’s feet in. She slammed the car door, rounded the back of the car, and took her seat behind the wheel. She looked over her shoulder.
The man flailed at the door handle trying to get out. He kicked at the backs of the front seats. He screamed for help.
Carmen held her arm around his neck. “You ain’t going nowhere,” she said. Carmen grabbed the cord around the man’s neck and pulled it backward. She twisted it in her hand until it was tight against his skin. The man gasped for breaths. With each breath he managed to get in, Carmen twisted the cord tighter. The man kicked the back of the passenger seat. His arms pawed off Carmen’s long black hair. He managed to get a handful and pull. Carmen yanked the cord tighter around his neck. After another minute, and the man stopped moving, Carmen let go. The man was dead.
“Flip down the seat back and push him through,” Angel said.
Carmen scooted to the side, dropped the larger portion of the rear seat back, and muscled the old man’s body through to the trunk. Then she flipped the seat up again and let out a long breath. “Easy as pie. Let’s get him back to the house and get started.”
Angel looked in the mirror at Carmen in the back. Carmen was digging around by her feet.
“What are you doing?” Angel asked.
“He dropped something,” Carmen said. She picked the item up from the floor and spun it in her hand.
“What’s that?” Angel asked.
“It looks like some kind of inhaler. I guess he won’t be needing it now.” Carmen lowered her rear window and tossed it out.
“Fingerprints, Mama,” Angel said.
Carmen shrugged the comment off. “Your father told me to throw it. The cops can’t find me anyway.”
Angel said nothing. She put the car in reverse, made a Y-turn, and pulled from the parking lot.
Chapter 2
The clock on the unmarked Charger’s dash read a few minutes before seven in the morning. The sun wouldn’t be up for another half hour. Hank and I had been called in early to report to the scene of a body dump in Tampa Heights. The neighborhood was one of the oldest, and most crime abundant, in Tampa, which was a shame. The low property value inspired a lot of investors to come in to rehab the historic area. While some succeeded in opening new businesses, a number of the investors went belly up. They left the area with a lot of unfinished plans and what I assumed were empty promises to the residents.
The pitter-patter of the old, red brick road vibrated our car. Lights from marked TPD cruisers up the block lit the trees along the edge of the park. Hank and I pulled up behind other police cars parked on the corner of East Adalee and North Central Avenue. I killed the motor and stepped out from the driver’s seat. I hung my badge around my neck. To the right of the T intersection where we parked, and tucked behind evenly spaced oak trees, was Joseph Robles Park—a two-block-by-three-block patch of grass with a kidney-bean-shaped lake taking up a good portion of the center. At night, the place became a popular hangout for drug dealers and gangbangers. Crime there was commonplace. The park was the scene of our dump.
Hank and I walked toward the first uniformed officer we saw. Officer Quinlin was sitting on the push bar of his car.
“Quinlin, where is the body?” I asked.
The horizon to the east was beginning to break the darkness of the morning. The current shade of the sky was something between purple and orange. Quinlin’s eyes were wide in the brightening dimness.
Quinlin pointed north toward the park’s lake. “About thirty feet from the water’s edge there. Can you see the guys?”
I looked to where he was pointing. I saw the shadows of our officers and the light from their flashlights. “Yeah, I got them.”
“That’s some gruesome stuff over there,” he said.
“Gruesome how?” Hank asked.
“I don’t really know any other way to describe it. For lack of better words, the man was skinned.”
I pulled my head back in disbelief. “Did you just say skinned?” I asked.
Quinlin nodded in confirmation. “Head to toe.”
“Did you guys find ID?” Hank asked.
“There’s just…” Quinlin said. “You just…”
“Just what?” I asked.
“You’ll have to see for yourself.”
“Come on, Hank,” I said. I started toward our other officers.
We approached the group across the wet grass of the park. I saw their flashlights focused on what looked like Officer Tate draping a blue tarp, from one of our cruisers, over a body. Officers McCarthy, Baker, and Berris were the other police on the scene.
“Morning, guys. I take it this is our body?” I asked.
Patrol Officer Tate was still positioning the tarp over the remains. He spoke up. “Morning, Lieutenant. Sergeant. Yeah, this is him. It’s not pretty. Fair warning if you guys want to see what’s beneath.”
I jerked my chin at him to lift the covering.
He pulled the corner back. The lights from the other officer’s flashlights lit up the remains.
I ran my hand over my freshly shaved head. “What the hell is this?”
“Geez,” Hank said. “A more stern warning next time.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was looking at. The face, shoulders, and chest were visible—devoid of most of their skin. The lips were gone. I didn’t see any teeth.
“I warned you. The rest of the body is the same,” Tate said.
I motioned for him to show Hank and me the rest.
Tate flipped the tarp back the rest of the way.
Head to toe, every last piece of skin had been removed, aside from a few areas. The ears remained, and bits and pieces of the man’s skin were still on his feet. Around his midsection was blood-soaked gauze, fashioned into what looked like a diaper. I estimated the weight of the body to be around two hundred pounds, the height around six feet. The lack of breasts told me it was a man. The corpse lay on its back, facing up. Both skinned arms lay outstretched to the sides. The right leg was partially bent. The man’s left leg was straight—both skinned top to bottom. The man’s eyeballs remained, but the eyelids were removed.
Looking around, I spotted no clothing, shoes, wallet, or phone—just a skinned body in the park. My eyes caught the shadows of some people walking to the corner up on the street.
“Cover him back up. I don’t want anyone living in this neighborhood here seeing that,” I said.
Tate let the tarp fall back over the body.
“Damn good thing it’s an off day for school, otherwise this neighborhood would be crawling with kids,” Berris said.
I let out a long breath. “Did you guys find anything?”
“Nothing at all. It’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to identify the remains. No skin on the fingers to print,” Berris said.
“No teeth, no dental records,” Hank said.
I looked at Tate. “Pulled or dentures?” I asked.
“I didn’t get my head all up in there to check. Everything is covered in blood. Best bet would probably be DNA, but we would need something to check it against, you know?” Tate said.
“Who called it in?” I asked.
“A woman up early, walking her dog.” Tate stood from his crouched position next to the body and removed a small notepad from his breast pocket. He flipped it open. “Gertrude Walker. Older woman. She lives up the block there.” Tate pointed. “We have Officer Poplin at her house now, getting her statement.”
“Did she see anything?” I asked.
“Just the corpse. Nothing else,” Tate said.
“Let me get her information in case I need to contact her.”
Tate gave it to me, and I wrote it down and slipped my notepad back into my suit pocket.
“Thanks, Tate,” I said. I look
ed at the officers standing around. “Exactly as found?”
McCarthy, a late-fifties patrol cop, stood with his husky arms folded across his chest. “Yes. No one has touched anything. I was first on the scene,” he said.
“Did you call for forensics and the medical examiner yet?” I asked.
“I did it right away. They should be here any second. You know what this is, right?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. What is this?”
“The Quilter. It’s identical. I was on one of the Quilter scenes back in the early eighties.”
The Quilter was a local Tampa-area legend—however, not in any endearing way. His given name was Jack Redding. He’d murdered and skinned four people back in the early eighties. His wife turned him in and took her own life shortly thereafter. When the police raided his home, they found him naked, sitting in a recliner, stitching together human skin with a needle and thread. He was dubbed the Quilter because of the four different colors of skin he was patching together. He had been executed sometime in the nineties.
“Jack Redding was put to death twenty years ago,” I said.
“I’m telling you we ended up getting the wrong guy or this is someone with some inside knowledge of the actual crimes.”
“Everyone knows the Quilter story, McCarthy,” I said.
“Not this much. When we released the information to the press, we never informed them of the parts of the bodies that were left untouched. The ears were always left, as were sexual organs and the skin on the soles of the feet. The scene I was on, well, the body had gauze covering the midsection, just as this one does,” McCarthy said.
“Crime scene photos maybe?” Hank asked.
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