by Lee Perry
Grunting and wincing with effort, he jammed the lubricated tip of his sheathed member into Jason Wong’s backside and pumped inside the still warm body, “Everything is mine… Mine to have… mine to take.” He thrust hard, and gritting his teeth growled, “MINE!” Trembling rigidly, his eyes and veins bulging, his lips pulled back in a feral snarl as he climaxed, and he suddenly laughed aloud when he felt his buttocks cramp as they clenched spasmodically. His eyes closed and he rasped, “All of this is mine, you fucking piece of dirt!”
Panting and breathless, he licked his dry lips and winced as he pushed himself back onto his elbows and pulled his now limp member free with a quiet plop. Straddling the body on all fours, he carefully pulled the condom from his shrinking, dangling penis, making sure no part of it touched his clothes and sat up. Holding the used condom aloft, he looked around the spacious room and stopped when he turned to look out at the stunning view of the harbor from Jason’s panoramic windows, “Huh…” he muttered, “it’s getting dark, isn’t it?”
Millburn, NJ
“Everything is mine. Mine to have… mine to take.” He thrust hard, and gritting his teeth growled, “MINE!” Trembling rigidly, his eyes and veins bulging, his lips pulled back in a feral snarl as he climaxed, and he suddenly laughed aloud. His eyes closed and he rasped, “All of this is mine, you fucking piece of dirt!”
Catherine woke with a start and she clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. Her eyes wide and staring, she held her body rigidly still, afraid she would wake Jordan. She closed her eyes, willing her muscles to relax and rolled carefully onto her other side. Facing away from her, she drew a shaky, quiet breath and realized she was cold. Bad dream… She forced her eyes open, but everything’s okay. Everything’s okay, nothing’s going on… Jordan would be awake if it wasn’t… She drew a deep, clearing breath and covered her mouth when she coughed. Jesus that was scary though. She sniffed and slid smoothly from the bed, headed for the bathroom. Her brow furrowed, Shouting about time…. Was someone yelling about time, or was it mine? Jeez, how stupid to be so rattled about a nightmare I can’t ever remember now.
Winthrop, MA
“Shit.”
Schmidt’s head lolled on his shoulders and he released the slender hips, gasping painfully when Jason's body slumped to the side and his penis pulled painfully from the ruined backside.
“Fucker… you shouldn’t have pissed me off.”
He stripped off the second condom and stood on legs that trembled and shook. In spite of Jason Wong’s spare frame, Schmidt expended a lot of effort dragging his body to the wine cellar and when the body bent at the pelvis around the doorframe, he lost his temper. Shouting angrily, he grabbed the dead man by his hair and the waistband of the pants bunched around his knees and yanked him inside. The body had collapsed in a slumped kneeling position, folded in on itself with Jason’s forehead resting on the cold floor, between his knees, his exposed backside raised. Frustrated tears had brimmed in Schmidt’s eyes, and enraged he pulled another condom from his back pocket and sodomized the body again, shouting incoherently when he climaxed a second time. He stumbled back into the large room and discarded the second used condom where he disposed of the first, in the bar’s sink. Turning on the water, he poked it down the drain and flicked on the garbage disposal, listening to the smoothly grinding gears for a few seconds before flicking it back off. He finally pulled his jeans back up, sucking in his small gut so he could button and zip the fly.
Straightening his shoulders, he walked back to the wine cellar. He knelt next to the body and untangling the wooden handles of the garrote, pulled them down towards the floor. Deeply embedded in Wong’s flesh, he closed his eyes and pulled the buried wire straight, jerking it from the dead man’s neck and this time when he left the cellar he closed the door behind him.
He rinsed the garrote in the sink and after drying it and his gloved hands with a hand towel, wound the wire around the handles and shoved the device back in his jacket pocket. He made a slow circuit of the room, lowering the blinds and closing them, “No more view…” he said in a quiet, singsong voice, “All gone.”
Double-checking to make sure all the doors were locked, he climbed the stairs to the second floor. “Ah…” he smiled as he stepped into Jason’s home office, a room with a desk that overlooked the same harbor view. A small rack of four servers sat against the far wall and he took care to close the blinds before sitting down at the desk. The upstairs computer was on and he could see it was networked into the servers and downstairs laptop, “Just like you said it was.”
He pulled a flash drive from his shirt pocket and plugged it into the computer. Smiling, he leaned back in the swivel chair, his gloved hands resting on the arms. At least I can take my time transferring the funds, but from now on only offshore accounts… Accessing Swiss accounts is too dicey and time consuming. He shook his head in relief, still smiling as he watched program windows rapidly open and close on the screen as the software on his flash drive hacked into Jason Wong’s hard drives, looking for banking information. No fucking interruptions this time.
He sighed deeply and suddenly yawned. “Oh great,” he groaned when he looked down, “not again…” Blood stained the front of his shirt and jacket and flicking his eyes at the monitor, muttered, “That’ll take a while…” He stood and searched across the hall for Jason’s bedroom. Once inside, he quickly opened the closet and pulled a similar-looking bomber jacket and a polo shirt from the hangers. “This should fit okay…” he muttered, heading downstairs to look for a plastic bag.
New York City, NY
She watched the elevator doors close before asking, “Could we really go to Disneyworld for Christmas?”
“Why not?’ Jordan grinned down at her, “Sounds like fun the more I think about it.”
“Cam is still young enough not to feel like he’d be missing out on anything having Christmas somewhere else…” She briefly took Jordan’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
“We should start ordering ornaments and lights.” Jordan’s smile faded, “Are you keeping up with sign language with Cam because my parents are deaf and you’re hoping I’ll invite them over at some point?”
Catherine looked at her in genuine surprise, “No, Jordan, I don’t want to sound like a broken record but I meant it when I said I wanted him to know sign language because it’s the language you taught me when I was unable to speak.” Her eyes flicked to the flashing floor numbers above the elevator doors and taking her hand again, looked up earnestly into unreadable blue eyes, “I believe having a voice is second only to having love in your life.”
Pulling her close, Jordan placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “Thank you…” she said, her voice thick with emotion, “because I don’t know if my parents and I will ever…” She sighed, “You know, reconnect.”
“I want us to be a happy family first, Jordan; you, Cameron and me. Anything else that comes along is just icing on an already amazing cake. Only you can decide when or if you want to connect with them again, I only care about being with you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“What would you like to do for Thanksgiving?”
“I do not want to cook.”
Catherine snickered, “Me neither.”
“We could just have a nice turkey dinner delivered and spend the holiday at home…” Jordan’s eyes flew open wide, “And, we could get our Christmas tree and decorations for the house and just go nuts decorating the place.” She wagged her eyebrows, “Huh?”
Snorting softly, Catherine grinned, “Cam’ll love it,” she assured her, “and so will I.”
They could hear the phone ringing in their office and Jordan hurried inside to answer it, “Hawkins.”
“Yes, Agent Hawkins, my name is Edith Niles; I’m the chief medical examiner here in Suffolk County Massachusetts. I’ve just finished an autopsy on a murder victim we identified as a hate crime and when I entered the specifics of the injuries in the national database, we received an ale
rt from your office.”
Jordan shot Catherine a look, “Thank you for calling, can you give me a brief description of the body?”
“Jason Wong, a twenty-eight year old Asian male, computer programmer, strangled by garrote, sodomized… more than once, and the word chink carved into his chest. Does that sound like something you’ve been working on?”
Jordan sank in her desk chair feeling deflated, “Yes, Doctor Niles, I’m afraid it does.”
Winthrop, MA
The victim’s hard drives had been digitally stripped clean of data so Jordan checked out a bureau car and made the four hour drive to Winthrop alone. She parked in front of the two-story brick colonial house surrounded by yellow crime scene tape and held her badge wallet up for the police officer stationed at the front door.
“Hello, I’m from the bureau…”
“Agent…” The older man nodded and opened the front door, “I’m the only one here so you’ll have to show yourself around.”
“No problem…”
“And the crime scene unit removed the hard drives like you asked and left them in a box on a desk back there.”
“Okay,” she nodded, “thank you.”
She stepped inside and he closed the door behind her. She waited for the county coroner to email her the autopsy results, including the crime scene photos, and then put in a call to the detective in charge of the homicide. He had little to tell her except the victim’s mother had called her son and when he failed to answer or call her back after an hour she made the twenty minute drive from Boston and found him lying dead in his wine cellar. The local authorities found a bouquet of flowers left on a table by the front door and bloodstained area of the carpet by the downstairs desk but little other evidence.
Jordan looked at the flowers as she walked down the hall to the large room in the back of the house. Well, her eyebrows arched as she took in the décor of the place, the realty listing for this place certainly nailed it… She entered the large room and placed her hands on her hips, stopping for a moment to regard the panoramic view, I would definitely describe this place as a stunning waterfront property with spectacular views of the harbor. The listing she found on the web indicated Jason Wong’s four bedroom home had high quality finishes including a state-of-the-art kitchen, solarium, And an incredible outdoor deck and patio that blend naturally with the coastal landscape… she noted drily.
She turned; hands still parked on her hips and regarded the dark dried bloodstains on the carpet by the desk. She took out her phone and took a picture of a yellow Ethernet cable lying on the carpet next to it. The cable was plugged into an outlet at the bottom of a support beam, And the other end plugged into what… was there a laptop on the desk? She wondered, seeing the small cardboard box sitting where a laptop could have been and made a mental note to remember to take the box of hard drives for Catherine. She did say the chances of her being able to restore anything on these drives was remote… but it’s worth a try.
Sighing heavily, she pulled a latex glove from her jacket pocket and slid open the sliding glass door. She drew in a deep breath, savoring the salt sea smell of the ocean and walked out onto a covered patio. She walked to the seawall’s edge and gazed out at the sailboats moored in the harbor. According to the listing, you had Riparian rights out to two hundred seventy-five feet, Mister Wong. She rotated her neck, waiting until the vertebrae stopped popping before sighing again. Luxury may have certainly, ‘come to life’ here in your home, ‘designed and styled for today's discerning buyer.’ But it certainly wasn’t a lucky house for you, was it?
She turned and went back inside. Stopping in the middle of the room, she regarded the paintings of sailboats and old sailing ships that hung on the walls then returned to the desk, this time standing behind the swivel chair, Schmidt would have stood here with his garrote… She held her hands in front of her as though she held the assassin’s device in her hands, He brought flowers, told some bullshit story to get in, and Wong turned his back to him while he was sitting here… She froze when she saw the beer bottle sitting on the desk and turning in place, looked around her; You offered him a beer… she thought, staring down at the dried ring on an end table, and he left it there so he could kill you… then he cleaned up. He drank it or dumped it and made sure he took it and your laptop and stripped the hard drives upstairs.
She found the wine cellar and stood just outside the door, remembering the coroner’s photos of Jason Wong’s body; found lying on his side in a fetal position, his pants bunched around his ankles, “Jesus, Schmidt,” Jordan asked aloud, “what is with you and fucking dead people in the ass?” She turned from the room and stood behind the bar. I’m hungry… she thought, and checked her watch. Crossing her arms, she leaned on the counter and shook her head. The county evidence techs said they found no fingerprints on the keyboard or mouse in his upstairs office or anywhere else in this place. Doorknobs and anything he touched he wiped clean… She emitted another deep sigh and stared down dully at the sink. He would have been careful enough to take his used DNA-filled condoms with him too. She reached in her pocket and withdrew a small penlight. Or did he think that was too icky so he flushed them down the toilet? She shined it into the opening of the garbage disposal, using the penlight to push aside the partial rubber closure. Or maybe he stuffed them down here… Smiling, Jordan left her penlight on the counter and pulled latex gloves from her jacket pocket. She pulled them on her hands then pulled a small plastic evidence bag from the other pocket. Gripping the bottom of the bag in one gloved hand, she carefully pulled it inside out with the other, wearing it like a mitten. Using the penlight to keep the rubber closure pushed to one side, she shined it to the far side in the disposal unit and carefully pushed her other hand inside. Closing her eyes in concentration, she carefully gripped the strip of latex caught in the cogs of the grinding ring and gingerly pulled it free. Silently triumphant, she pulled her hand from the sink erator and pulled the evidence bag over the shredded condom. Her grin was triumphant as she zipped the bag closed and held it up so she could regard the ruined condom inside,
“Gotcha’…”
New York City, NY
Her eyes were slightly unfocused as she ran the pads of her fingers over the keys in a small circular motion, feeling them as they passed from the middle row to the bottom, from the bottom to the middle, from the middle to the top and back again. She’d been perusing the myriad of files she uploaded from Nancy Ward’s work stations and found nothing of a personal nature, let alone any reference to Joseph Schmidt.
But she did keep journals… Catherine opened a file where Nancy kept notes and articles, She was meticulous about keeping a record of damn near every thought she ever had about algorithms, Super Position… cortical cryptography. The pads of her fingers still passed lightly over the keys and she stared at the screen for a moment longer. I wonder how Jordan’s doing… I hope she makes it home for dinner tonight… Her breaths became slow and regular, and her eyes drifted closed while she considered her day; I’m glad Doctor Sackette, I mean, Lianna, could see me. She smiled, unaware she was doing so; she was grateful to have such easy access to the psychiatrist and she deeply appreciated the relationship she and Jordan had with her, I’m glad not every session has to end with a major revelation or me crying.
Drawing a deep breath, she yawned and opened her eyes, Jeez, if I keep on like this I’ll be ready for a nap… I am supposed to be working. Since she actually sat at the murdered woman’s desk, she pictured Nancy working there, her fingers flying over her keyboard at Dynamic Infrastructure.
She was smart, her brow furrowed and her finger pads resumed their lazy travel over the keys, she never would have kept a personal diary on her work drives… She closed her eyes and pictured herself sitting at Nancy’s desk, trying to see the monitor and keyboard as Nancy would have. Her breathing evened out as she relaxed into the image and looking down with her closed eyes, saw Nancy’s hands as they flew over her keyboard. If she did keep a personal
journal, she would have kept it online, and after making entries at work… she would have covered her tracks, careful to delete her browsing history…
Her eyes flew open just as her desk phone rang and when she saw the caller ID, she snatched it from the cradle, “Jordan?”
“Hey…” she heard her voice, “I’m on my way back, how are you doing?”
Catherine leaned back in her chair, grinning as she stared out the window, “I’m fine, I can’t believe you finished so fast.” Her eyes darted to the time stamp in the corner of her screen, “You can’t have been there long.”
“Didn’t need to be,” She thought she could hear a smile in her voice, “The county evidence team did a good job recording and collecting the scene but I still found a used condom in the garbage disposal.”
Catherine’s nose wrinkled, “Eew.”
“I know.” She heard her snort, “I’m on my way back, but you and Cam’ll be on your way home in a while and since I have to take this straight to the lab, I’ll keep the car and meet you there.”
Catherine slumped in her seat, “Oh…”
“I know, this’ll be the first time we’ve had to commute separately, but it was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I suppose,” Catherine grumped. “I missed you today. We haven’t been apart for this long in a while, you know.”
There was a pause until Jordan said, “Wow, you know what? That’s right. No wonder I’m driving so fast.”
