Season of the Witch

by Charlee Jacob

  Friends of three victims set up a $50,000 fund for information leading to apprehending and successful prosecution of this latest werewolf. Looking for packages became a scavenger hunt. Find one of the grisly gifts, get your mug on television. “Hi, Mom. Do I have veins between my teeth?” Get your name in the pot for a chance at part of the fifty grand chunk-o-rama.

  Anyone believing they knew the killer’s identity phoned in tip, name and address. Detectives Poe and Larson spent the last four days talking to cranks, nosy neighbors, and vindictive numbnuts with personal axes to grind. They interviewed forty-two people in those ninety-six hours, all sure of their places in curious history. There were the genuine few who thought they’d stumbled onto vital information, usually totally unrelated to the victims.

  Problem was, there were so many weirdos and such a growing number of violent crimes, it got harder to sift through the bloody deluge to assemble clues.

  They thought they had their perp two weeks ago, May 4.

  Aaron Beau Romer, an unemployed truck driver living in his Mack cab, was discovered feeding scraps of assorted non-vital organs to stray dogs. The day before, he’d fed them fingers. One mutt carried a knucklebone to a butcher at a small Greek grocery.

  Body parts! The police were elated, swarming the area. Detectives Donaldson and Ng found Romer filleting sandwich-thin kibble for the canines.

  Romer attacked Joe Donaldson with the knife. Janis Ng shot Romer three times—shoulder, neck, head—before he went down. Donaldson lost a lung.

  Romer was a different serial killer from the man they sought: previously unknown. His victims were ten runaway boys. Twenty shoes, ten little tongues, and ten rolled-up pairs of jeans were found under the cab’s seat. The tongues were pickled in a jar with eggs and garlic gherkins.

  The week after this, May 11, a S.W.A.T. team was called to Nubbing Cove, a neighborhood of mostly poor working class.

  There were werewolves out there.

  The team didn’t expect to find lycanthropes. Yet the source was a city councilperson who’d suffered the shock of watching them squat naked around a park fire, baying at the full moon, blood on their faces.

  Three officers were nipped. Turned out the blood on the perps’ faces (before they bit the cops) came from rats they’d toasted in the fire, not cleaned so the organs swelled, water and blood boiled, and the meat covering popped like cheese-stuffed peppers overflowing with goo.

  A little kid walked up, asking, “Can I have one of those?”

  The cop was distracted. “One what? A rat? This is a crime scene. Go away.”

  The child coyly tilted his head. “Yes, I want a rat, please.”

  “You can’t have one. They’re evidence.” The policeman turned back to the guy he arrested.

  “It ain’t illegal to eat rats,” countered the were-freak.

  “Building fires in a city park and dancing nekkid ‘round them is,” the officer countered.

  “You have so many,” the child interjected. “Can’t I have one?”

  “God, what the hell for?” the cop wanted to know.

  The boy wickedly licked his lips. “Oh… YOU know.”

  Two days after this—May 13, a Friday—Sam Kriger found himself arrested for strangling four hookers in three months, leaving them floating in cheap motel swimming pools. The media loved to hate him, but only for only a day. He made the noon news and that was it. He hadn’t spilled any blood, there were no body parts. Body parts were IN; mere throttle and dump jobs were so last season. If you couldn’t keep up with the times, The Times didn’t keep you.

  Then Dodger Jensen phoned in. The self-styled performance artist told Ed Poe and Tom Larson that his friend Thelonious was the Trip-X Slayer. They went to see Jensen after he claimed it was Thelonious who left a package that morning at a branch library. In it were feet, severed just above the ankle bones—belonging to missing Shelly Greene. The toenails were painted a misty green.

  XXX

  OOO

  She Walked Across The Desert Alone,

  Searching For Her Wasteland Home.

  The heart had been found the night before in the doorway of an auto parts store.

  XXX

  OOO

  Hear Its Little Drum?

  Bursting Upon A Light Year?

  This beast made less sense as he went along.

  Both arms were in a box designed for long-stemmed roses, left among the gifts at a big church wedding two days ago. The fingernails were painted the same sea green.

  XXX

  OOO

  She Held In So Much Pain.

  Now She Knows What It Means To Let Go.

  “What makes you suspect it might be your friend?” Ed Poe asked Jensen.

  “Thelonious and I were drinking absinthes at The Cowl. That’s a Goth bar on South Paloma…”

  Larson nodded. “We know the place.”

  “That was Tuesday. Suddenly Thelonious got up and left, without saying goodbye. Weird but what the hell. I figured he’d had a sudden inspiration. For his art, I mean. I drank up and left five minutes later. Out in the parking lot I saw him with a woman. Later saw her photo in the paper. Shelly Greene.”

  Ed ran a hand through his dark hair. It was hot. Jensen’s place wasn’t air conditioned. “Do you know if he already knew Miss Greene?”

  Jensen hesitated, then replied, “No, I don’t. He’s been separated from his partner since the first of April. He cut out last January. If he’s dating, he hadn’t said anything to me. I know he didn’t pick her up in The Cowl because I saw him leave alone. I mean, she might’ve been there when we were and I didn’t notice. He might’ve followed her out. I just don’t know.”

  “You’re positive you saw him with Miss Greene?” asked Tom.

  The young man smiled thinly. “Totally.”

  Maybe this Jensen wasn’t a friend of Thelonious, but another asshole who made trouble for people who pissed him off. Yet his story had some credence lent it since The Cowl was a place Shelly Greene was known to frequent. Secretary by day, vampire after hours. Liked zaftig boys with long black hair. This hadn’t been released to the press.

  Both Tom and Ed rolled their eyes. Ed took the badge out.

  “Your name really is Edgar Allan Poe?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Bet you get a lot of jokes.”

  “Yup.”

  “Kind of look like him.”

  Tom and Ed were already leaving.

  “Remember when I suggested bleaching your hair or shaving your head?” Tom reminded him.

  “At least I shaved off the mustache.”

  It was night when the detectives drove to Thelonious’s house. The residence was dark except for a porch light. Doors and windows were wide open.

  Larson sniffed. “Whew! Bug shot!”

  Ed breathed through his mouth, making his voice nasal, twangy. “Just sprayed the place.”

  He rapped knuckles on the screen door and honked, “Hello?”

  Ed didn’t expect an answer.

  “He’s not here. I wouldn’t be either. I’ll bet he’s in a motel tonight, waiting for fumes to die and roaches to fall into neat piles.”

  “I thought exterminators covered the house in a big tent,” Larson pointed out.

  “That’s expensive. Cut rate package is a Frisbee disguised as a tiny crop duster, flying through the place peeing DEET.”

  “Must be nice to live in a neighborhood where he feels he can leave the place unlocked.”

  “Might have nothing worth stealing. If he and the lover split, maybe she took off with the good stuff.”

  “Actually, Jensen said he left her. Let’s do what’s next on the list and come back. Or he’ll come home and find us fallen into neat piles.”

  They headed to the car. Tom, who’d slipped into his customary humming of some jazz number, started the engine, pulling slowly away from the curb.

  “Whoa…” Ed put his hands up. Tom braked and they both jerked in their seats.

&nbs
p; “What?”

  Ed pointed. “There’s a car behind the house.”

  Tom leaned forward to look. “How’d I miss that? Doesn’t mean he’s home, though.”

  “I want another look.”

  Tom switched off the engine. “Why not. If we’re lucky, we’ll find Jimmy Hoffa’s wrinkled body in the back seat with gerbils running a chocolate treadwheel in his ass.”

  Ed shook his head. “You didn’t mention stray funk. Need body parts to keep the public happy. It’s a jaded world or ain’t you heard? Gotta be cleaned and chopped to make the buffet. Can’t serve it up whole with an apple in its mouth—or butt—anymore. They scream for XXX.”

  Tom frowned. “Romer killed ten little boys. This guy does fewer—so far as we know. Plus his were adults. Romer’s were babies,” he muttered. “What makes this nut so special?”

  “Popularity is a funny animal,” Ed replied as they crunched on foot up the drive where the hood of an old Cutlass was visible at the building’s rear. “Romer was busier yet lacked the style—if that’s what you can call it—that this gift-giver has. If he’d come along at another time, when he wouldn’t have been upstaged, Romer might’ve been a star in his own right. He could’ve been a contend-uh. Plus he was killed right away, limiting his appeal as far as interviews and a lengthy public trial are concerned. He had the butcher qualities the tabloids love. He was sexually dysfunctional, kept fetishes, and he was a cannibal. Could’ve had Year’s Best Bad Boy written all over him, but he lacked an uncluttered limelight and the sense to stay alive to wallow in it.”

  “All in the timing,” Tom remarked.

  Ed sighed. “For history, timing is everything. If you miss your moment in space, you miss it for eternity. The public and Jerry Springer wait for no man.”

  “He still on TV?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  At the separate, dark garage the detectives found the car’s trunk popped. Ed shined the narrow beam of a flashlight over a package. Brown paper.

  XXX

  OOO

  And What Is Beautiful

  Is What Has Survived The Gristmill

  Love Twisted Yet Intact.

  The paper was torn, box open, flies buzzing a dirge that prickled hairs on the back of Ed’s neck. He waved the light at what appeared to be a human heart.

  “Didn’t we already get Shelly Greene’s heart?” Tom asked.

  Ed smiled. “There is a god of probable cause.”

  “Thelonious might’ve found that behind a soda machine at the corner gas station,” Tom said evenly. His mouth twitched.

  “A good citizen should’ve called us. He’s in possession of evidence possibly linked to a crime, and he didn’t contact the proper authorities.” Ed wagged an index finger.

  Tom smirked. “Possibly linked to a crime? Ya think?”

  “Very naughty. Felonious, even. Hey, that rhymes with Thelonious.”

  “Something else in the back seat,” Tom observed.

  Windows down. Empty box. A cardboard sign read:

  Reserved

  For Presently Unknown Vic

  Coming Soon To A Mall Near You.

  Both their heads snapped up, staring at the house. Ed had already begun moving forward, toward the back porch, drawing his service revolver.

  Tom whispered as he followed, “Shouldn’t we call for backup?”

  “What if the next vic’s still alive in there? We could be talking minutes, of which we’ve already wasted quite a few.”

  They jogged up the back porch steps and opened the screen door. They winced as hinges squeaked. The glowing dial of a kitchen wall clock illuminated an industrial sprayer: rent job. The caustic smell permeated the place, stinging their eyes and nostrils. Of course Thelonious would’ve done the bugs himself, rather than hire a stranger to come inside.

  “That isn’t just pesticide,” Ed whispered, hissing air through his teeth.

  Tom silently agreed, pinching his nose. “Another chemical, strongly alkaline. Almost recognize it if it wasn’t for the bug juice.”

  Ed inspected framed pictures. Some were casualty photographs but he didn’t recognize murder vics. Might’ve come from a hospital’s ER, the burn ward, or surgery. Ink drawings showed an unsettling style even more radical than what the photos depicted. A combination of cartoon gross and surreal image combined snapshot and drawing.

  These were more recent. Signed T. Spunk, 2007.

  Older ones, signed T. Spunk, 2005, were a combination of ink, pencil, goofy and psychotic drawings with cheap Polaroid stills.

  “T? As in Thelonious? I thought that was his last name?” Ed muttered.

  “Thelonious Spunk. Like the jazz artist, Thelonious Monk.” Tom made a face, this pun blasphemous to him, as deep into jazz as he was.

  Ed huffed. “We’ve been on a first name basis with the creep and didn’t know it.”

  Outside the basement door sat a pair of men’s slippers, neatly arranged side by side. Light showed through the barest crack along the door frame. They heard a soft click from that direction. As if someone turned the doorknob—

  It didn’t turn. The clock’s broad dial glowed, illuminating the stationary curve of the dull brass knob.

  Click. Like the safety being removed on a gun.

  Both detectives tensed, straining to listen, weapons up. Ed trained his on the door. Tom turned his two-handed grip around the room…

  Click. Click.

  If this was a busier neighborhood with traffic outside, the small noise could’ve been lost. If one of them sighed, breathing stink, the sound wouldn’t have been noticed.

  Click.

  Of a single claw against concrete. Or trenchant incisors coming together. The tip of a butcher knife against solid bone, hard enough to pierce smoothly but not to chip.

  Ed slowly placed his hand on the knob.

  Click click click.

  It didn’t move under his palm, nothing turning it from the other side, the metallic tongue tapping in the lock’s groove. He grasped it firmly, paused, nodded to Tom, then quickly wrenched it open. The door swung soundlessly.

  Nothing but walled stairs downward, plenty of light below. And clicks, now clearly preceded by gasps. Single exhales, deep as snores, drawn out. Gasps of pain too long-tortured to scream anymore? Throat so raw it could only rasp? Or ball gag in the mouth, strain of trying to shriek causing it to tap against the teeth?

  Hhhhhaa.

  Click. Hhhhhaa.

  Click.

  Ed and Tom eased down the stairs. The steps were metal, slotted, well-braced. Covered with sponges set closely end to end, fastened down in some way they couldn’t see. The fact there was a wall between the stairs and the rest of the basement was aggravating.

  Sponges? Ed glanced at Tom who stared briefly at his feet. The sound their shoes made when depressing the sponges was a sucking damp, wetter the further down they crept. Queasy squishes.

  Toward the bottom the sponges became visibly redder. Each step pressured there, causing absorbed moisture to rise to the top. The final sponge was red before Ed put his foot on it.

  Hhhhhaa.

  Click.

  Hhhhhaa.

  Click.

  Hhhhhaa.

  Click.

  Ed didn’t want to step on the final red sponge but he had to. Blood foamed up through the porous fiber and washed thickly over his oxford.

  The alkaline smell was stronger than the pesticide down here. His nose ran and he slurped it back up as discreetly as he could. Tom snorted softly behind him.

  At the basement floor, they swung past the walled steps. The room spread out, brightly lit here and there.

  Ed saw white umbrellas. There were tungsten-halogen lamps spot-directed, producing diffused light.

  Hhhhhaa. Click.

  Hhhhhaa. Click.

  The detectives froze—a short man with greasy red hair breathed on a camera lens, then took a photograph before the lens cleared. The camera was an old Hasselblad, mounted into a dead-still
position on a heavy tripod.

  Ed, still in front, eyed the rest of the room: a backless velveteen chaise lounge, a false arch hung with Halloween store webbing and dotted with black plastic spiders, and an easel with a blank canvas in the middle of which was taped a black and white photo of a bowl of fruit. The apples and pears each had bites taken out of them. The bananas were splayed, peels blackening. The lounge was badly stained from fresh red to gouts so thick and old they’d turned brown.

  The fresh red. It oozed from the empty wrists of the dead woman lying on the chaise. Spreadeagled on her back, her legs were bent to either side. Her feet had been removed and odd stick feet—like a bird’s—were inserted into the ankles. The hem of a white satin gown had been lifted and carefully arranged in folds above her thighs, rubber snakes coiled within the folds. The pubic hair above her naked crotch had been shaved into the top of a grinning death’s head.

  Thelonious Spunk stopped using the Hasselblad and picked up a Pentax from a nearby worktable. He ducked and bobbed for angle variety, tapping off quick shots in an ever-tightening circle around the lounge.

  Click click click click click click click click click click.

  If he noticed the detectives, he said nothing. He stopped to poke at something between the victim’s thighs. When he pulled back, they saw an object in her vagina, round and white. Her severed hands rested next to her, palms together, fingers broken to lace in a curious fashion. The fingernails were painted white, like the gown. There was a vertical gash between her breasts, laced shut into X’s with white plastic craft cord that had most of the seeping blood blotted from it. Dusted with talcum, it was tied at the top with a decorative bow. It hadn’t pulled the edges of the wound together very well. Perhaps it wasn’t intended to.

  The work table was spattered with instruments: a scalpel, shears, several knives of varying lengths and curves. A saw. Gauze. Cotton. Surgical tape. A syringe. A blood-stained apron, rubber gloves, a box of latex gloves. A cardboard carton for eggs—empty. Several gray-silver plastic canisters for film.