BAD BLOOD: PART FIVE

Genre: Crime Fiction/Murder Mystery

BAD BLOOD

Part Five

By Daniel Skye

 

          Monday, January 6^th, 2014.

          Augusto Hernandez of the ESB was dead, shot twice on his front porch. So was Hector Cardona, shot three times in his own bathtub.

          Damien Delgado had pulled the rest of his crew off the street. No one was going to be selling dope on his watch.

          The rounds from the gun that killed Hernandez didn’t match the rounds that killed the Darsky’s before their house was torched. And the swelling rumors of the Mechanic loose in Carter City seemed to make the arrow point in his direction. Dale Craven just wished he knew which direction that was.

Herb Blackwell, the owner of the apartment complex on the East Side, was also found dead in his home. He was murdered, strangled with a wire. The same as Jason Briggs, the buildings superintendent.

          And someone had used plastic explosives to blow up a department store in downtown Carter City. The Firebug, as the Daily Buzz liked to call him, was stepping up his game.

          All in all, Sunday had been quite a day for Dale Craven. Now it was Monday morning and he’d yet to hear back from his partner.

          Wes Archer was MIA and Dale was hoping he’d turn up soon, alive and well. Archer was infamous for this behavior. Dale knew that he fancied himself as a lone wolf. That he marched to the beat of his own drum. But it wasn’t like Wes to turn off his phone and just ignore everyone when they were in the middle of several major investigations.

          “Any luck?” Lieutenant Morris asked Dale that morning, the fluorescents illuminating the deep scars on his face. His appearance was startling and made some people uncomfortable, but Archer and Dale didn’t bat an eye when they faced him. They treated him with respect and dignity when others couldn’t even look him in the eye.

          The scars made him appear older than he was. His face told the tale of a man who had been to hell and back, and shared no regrets.

          “None,” Dale told him.

          “Well, just keep trying his phone,” Morris said. “And in the meantime, I need you on the Copycat case. Captain Frost has got a match burning under my ass on this one. He wants his daughter back in one piece. Find her, Dale. You’re my only shot with Archer out of the picture.”

          “I’ll do my best,” Dale promised.

          “I’m going to need you to try harder than that,” Morris said. “Ellen Frost’s life depends on it.”

* * *

          Wes Archer had consulted Ray Frye on the getup. Ray suggested an all-black ensemble. Archer had the black boots covered. The black jeans and shirt he acquired at a thrift store, along with the Cannibal Corpse hoodie, again at Ray’s suggestion.

          “Trust me,” Ray said. “You’ll fit in with this.”

          Back at Ray’s apartment, Archer changed in the bathroom. When he stepped out dressed head to toes in black, Ray held something in his hand and Archer held out his palm to except it.

          It was a sterling silver ring with a pentagram in the center. A donation from his own personal collection “This will help you look the part,” Ray had said. “But if you really want to look the part, you shouldn’t show up sober.”

          “What do you mean?”

          “The Satanists that frequent skid row, they’re all dope fiends and crystal meth tweakers. You show up sober and they’re going to know you’re not one of them.”

          “Very true,” Archer said, nodding. “You got any pot?”

          “I don’t think pot will do the trick,” Ray said, wandering off to his bedroom. He returned with a brown shoebox and lifted the cover, removed a syringe. “But this might work.”

          “I can’t,” Archer shook his head. “As much as I want to, I can’t risk it. I’ll get suspended. Maybe even fired this time.”

          “You’re doing this to find the captain’s daughter, right?”

          “Yeah, so?”

          “So if you find her alive and well, I think the captain can forgive you for this one.”

          “You know, sometimes I can’t believe you work for the county.”

          “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re a cop,” Ray said.

          Archer sighed. “Just give me the syringe.”

          Ray passed the syringe to Archer and removed a blackened spoon and a balloon of heroin from the shoebox. “By the way, the password is Daemon. It’s an archaic spelling of demon. Make sure you pronounce it correctly or you’ll give yourself away. You want me to write this down in case you forget?”

* * *

          He waited for dark. And then Archer returned to the belly of the beast.

          Skid Row.

          The home of “Cultus Satanas.”

          The Cult of Satan.

          Stoned, Archer ignored common sense and disregarded Ray Frye’s advice to hoof it or get a ride from someone else. He drove his Jeep from Ray’s apartment and parked several blocks away. He walked the rest of the way. He couldn’t afford to be seen pulling up with the CCPD license plates showing.

          There was no marquee. No fliers or posters advertising the meeting. But Ray was like Archer’s snitch Toad. He knew things about Carter City that average citizens wouldn’t even converse about. And he knew where the meeting was going down.

          Cultus Satanas follow the same basic ritual. They meet every night at an old meatpacking plant that was condemned years ago by the board of the health.

          Basically, it’s a gathering of posers and wannabes all hopped up on meth and coke or covered with track marks. The group did have a few legitimate members, disturbed individuals that scared even the rest of the group.

          And these wannabes, these followers seemed to be brainwashed. They hung on their leaders every word. Whatever he said, they repeated, muttering in unison. Whatever he did, they mimicked his actions. Monkey see, monkey do.

          And Archer, with his bloodshot eyes and the heroin coursing through his veins, went stumbling down that dark alley and approached the side door, which as he anticipated, was guarded.

          “Password,” the guard barked, demanding to know. He was an obese man with a lip ring, a nose ring, earrings, eyebrow piercings, and rings of sweat around his armpits. Even on a chilly night like this, the man was saturated. Beads of sweat were accumulating on his dense forehead and dripping down to his brow.

          “Daemon,” Archer said, certain he was pronouncing it correctly.

          “Alright, you can enter,” the obese man said. He banged on the door, three quick raps, and somebody opened up on the other side. Archer stepped in and took a look around. The décor wasn’t very welcoming.

          They had drawn on the walls with black crayons and markers, tagged them with graffiti. Archer saw inverted crosses and pentagrams and the number 666 scrawled across every wall, squeezed between other hellish designs and nightmarish depictions.

          This was Cultus Satanas in all their glory. A bunch of teenagers and young adults all huddled around trashcan bonfires, trying to keep warm.

          “You’re just in time, brother,” one of them said to Archer as he joined the gathering.

          In time for what? Archer wondered. But he didn’t ask. Didn’t want to give himself away. If they all knew something he didn’t, acknowledging that fact would be like waving a red flag in their faces.

          The leader, a tall man in a hooded black robe, approached his makeshift pulpit, and addressed the crowd.

          “Hello my brothers and sisters,” he spoke and right on cue, his followers all returned the greeting. “Redemption is upon us. Our savior has promised to usher in a new era. An era where we will no longer have to hide our actions or beliefs from the world.

          The Green Ghost has promised us that the streets will run red with a river of blood. Their blood. The blood of the greedy, the corrupt, the oppressive. Oh yes, my brothers and sisters, it will flow. The Green Ghost, the Devil’s chosen one, has guaranteed us all immortality. Hail Satan. Hail the chosen one.”

          “Hail Satan!” his followers recited. “Hail the chosen one!”

“And you know what we must do, my brothers and sisters, to appease the chosen one. We must offer a sacrifice. He must have his reparations. Expiation.”

“Expiation!” they chanted around the trashcan fires.

“Bring us the girl!” the leader commanded.

The door was thrust open, and the obese man with the rings of sweat around his gray T-shirt drags in a helpless girl by her waist. A rolled bandana was forced between her teeth and tied behind her head to muffle her screams. Her wrists were bound with wire to prevent her from chewing through it should she manage to loosen the bandana.

They laid her on the cold floor, in the center of a pentagram that had been outlined with chalk the way they outline the dead bodies. A black candle sat at each point of the pentagram, waiting to be lit, waiting for the sacrifice to commence.

The leader threw back his black hood, revealing his fiery red hair and his one good eye. The other had been gouged and scar tissue formed over the socket, sealing his eye shut permanently.

          Wes had seen enough. He couldn’t maintain his cover anymore. He yanked the .44 Magnum, his Dirty Harry gun, from the holster and fired a single shot in the air. Most of these so-called Satanists took off like scared rabbits. Only a few remained.

          And after he fired the second shot, all but the leader had evacuated the meat packing plant.

          “Put your hands in the air,” Archer said, getting ready to fire a third shot if necessary.

          “I’ve heard about you,” the leader said. “The Green Ghost warned me of you.”

          “I’m not going to ask you again.”

          The leader threw his hands in the air and winked at Archer with his good eye. “You’re probably wondering what happened here. We all have to make sacrifices.”

          “You gouged out your own eye?”

          “It’s a small price to pay for immortality, don’t you agree?”

          “I agree that you’re a whacko and you have the right to remain silent. I’d interrogate you first, but I know you’re not the man I’m looking for. A sicko, no doubt. But not nearly as sick as the son of a bitch I’m hunting. So I’m going to ask you this once, where is he? The Green Ghost?”

          “In hell,” the man with the fiery red hair and one remaining eye cackled. Then he dropped his arms to the side and lunged forward.

          It took one bullet to stop him dead in his tracks. But the shot hadn’t killed him. Just took out one of his kneecaps.

          The leader wailed in pain, clutching at his shattered knee, trying to stop the bleeding.

          “I can’t believe you’re making me ask this again,” Archer sighed. “Where is the Green Ghost?”

          “In hell,” he repeated and resumed his howling.

          Archer freed the girl, pulling the bandana down and untying the taut wire from her wrists. “Just wait right here for a sec,” Archer told her. “I know you’ve been through a lot and I promise you’ll be home before you know it.”

          Archer turned back to the leader, striking his nose with the butt of his gun.

          “Where the fuck is he?”

          “Just kill me,” he gasped. “I’ll never talk. You might as well pull the trigger and save yourself some time.”

          “I’d rather see you behind bars.”

          “Yeah? Well I’m gonna get a lawyer and sue your ass for police brutality.”

          “Yeah? Take a number and get in back of the line.”

* * *

          Downtown Carter City.

Dale Craven had been out since ten AM and now it was pitch black outside. He had exhausted all his resources. He shook down every petty crook he could corner for information. Hit up every snitch and ex-con in the city. He questioned every potential witness in the Shannon Reynolds, Molly Henderson killings–teachers, friends, students, even the principal.

His search had led him to downtown Carter, where he started questioning potential witnesses of the department store explosion. It was his assumption that the murders, the kidnapping of Ellen Frost, and the fires could all be related somehow. He just had to make the pieces fit.

It was around nine-thirty when he got the call to head over to the Bellmore Café. The dumbwaiter had refused to ascend the shaft from the basement. Seemed to be carrying too much weight. So the chef went down to see what was holding it up. That’s when he found the girl’s body at the bottom of the shaft.

Ellen Frost’s body.

* * *

          “Where the hell have you been?” Dale asked when Archer returned to the department after midnight.

In the end, he got nothing out of the one eyed Satanist who proclaimed the Green Ghost had offered him immortality. He had kept his mouth shut and was going to be spending a long time in Carter City Maximum where he’d probably shoot his mouth off and lose his other eye. At least that’s what Archer was hoping.

He called it in and had the boys book him and escort that young lady back to her home safely. He hadn’t found Ellen Frost as he set out to do, but he did save another life in the process. And that felt pretty damn good.

And he was hot on the Green Ghost’s trail. He could feel himself zeroing in on him.

          “At a cult meeting,” Wes replied. “Catch me up to speed.”

          “Augusto Hernandez and Hector Cardona are dead. So is Herb Blackwell, the landlord of the apartment complex on the East Side. The Firebug upgraded to plastic explosives and blew up a department store in downtown Carter, and we found Ellen Frost’s body stashed in a dumbwaiter at the Bellmore Café. And we might have a suspect in the Firebug case. Seth Cambridge.”

          “How long was I gone?”

          “Crime doesn’t take a break just because you decide to.”

          “Who killed Hernandez and Cardona?”

          “We think it was the Mechanic.”

          “What about Herb Blackwell?”

          “The same man who killed Jason Briggs and the Darsky’s. Firebug.”

          “And how’d you hear about this Cambridge guy?”

          “A fellow pyromaniac who did time with him. Said he confessed to murder while they were sharing a cell. While we’re exchanging notes, what did you find on Copycat?”

          “Copycat?”

          “That’s what the Daily Buzz is calling your brother’s successor.”

          “I guess they’ve never heard of the Green Ghost. And remind me to stomp the crap out of that editor.”

          “The Green Ghost?”

          “Don’t ask me. Just have the boys look into it. It could be an alias. Could be a nickname. Could be some obscure reference from an independent film or some novel that’s half a century old. But if they find something on it, it might get us the lead we need.”

          “Archer!” Lieutenant Morris’s voice echoed down the hall.

          “If I’m not back in five minutes, start making arrangements for my funeral,” Archer quipped.

          He walked to Morris’s office and Morris slammed the door shut. He didn’t even bother to sit back behind his desk or invite Archer to pull up a chair.

          “Where the fuck have you been?” Morris demanded to know.

          “I was working undercover, trying to gather evidence on the Green Ghost case?”

          “The who?”

          “The Green Ghost. I believe it’s the alias the man who took Ellen Frost is using. And I think I’m close to finding him.”

          “Well thanks to you wandering off and playing one man army when you should have been working with your partner, Ellen Frost is dead and the captain is furious. He wants your badge. He’s issuing a mandatory drug test for you tomorrow morning. Don’t give him a reason to fire you. Flush out your system if you’re on anything I don’t know about, which I hope you’re not.”

          “I’m clean,” Archer lied.

          “Good, now for the love of God, get back to work and stick by Dale’s side at all times. Maybe if you nail this guy soon enough, Frost will have a change of heart.”

          Walking back to his desk, Archer pondered how he was going to pass this drug screening. And then it came to him.

          “Dale, do you want me working this case?”

          “Of course,” Dale said. “You’re our only shot at solving this.”

          “Then I need you to do me a favor. I need your urine.”

          “Oh, no. Not again.”

          “This is the last time. I promise. Captain Frost wants my badge and he’s going to get it if I don’t have clean urine to hand in.”

          “Fine,” Dale sighed. “In the meantime, we need to find this Cambridge guy.”

          “We should check with Toad. He told me he didn’t know any firebugs. But if this guy has a record, Toad might know him from somewhere else. He might even be a customer.”

          “Wes…I’m so sorry I forgot to mention it. Your buddy, Toad…he’s gone. They found him in some back alley, shot twice in the back of the head.”

To Be Continued With Part Six!

SPECTER

Genre: Horror

SPECTER

By Daniel Skye

          The restaurant is closed for the season and someone knocks anyway. Probably a tourist, someone just in town for the holiday. Some spoiled, rich socialite from the city who just rolled into town in their Mercedes or Corvette convertible.

Probably driving with the top still down, because even when it’s ten degrees Fahrenheit, you just need to show off and draw attention to yourself like the douche-magnet that you are.

          They tap on the glass doors, ignoring the big CLOSED FOR THE SEASON sign that hangs in the window from a few strips of masking tape.

          And they say, “I see your car in the parking lot. I know you’re in there.”

          And you tell them to scram, to get lost, to politely fuck off. That you’re all closed up for the season and you won’t be open again ’til next spring.

          But they’re still banging their fists against the glass as you walk away, shouting, “Wait, I need help!”

          Shit, you think. You’re not even supposed to be here today.

You got roped into this because Mike Perez, the guy who was supposed to spruce up the restaurant, was a no-show. So Mr. Coffey called you instead. You just got laid off for the winter and you need the money. Sometimes unemployment just doesn’t pay the bills.

So you’re here, scrubbing bathroom tiles with a toothbrush and getting high off the fumes of Scrubbing Bubbles, polishing wood surfaces to bring back the finish, and wiping the windows until the glass sparkles, then wiping them clean again when you spot the balls of lint that have clung to the glass.

          Scrub. Wipe. Polish. Rinse. Mop. Repeat.

          This is your history. Your legacy. Your contribution to society.

          Scrubbing bathroom floors and piss stained toilets.

          And Bryan Coffey is probably sitting at home, curled up in front of the fireplace with a glass of brandy and a thick cigar. Nice and toasty.

          Bryan Coffey, who always prefers to be called Mr. Coffey. Bryan Coffey, the prick who laid you off for the season and didn’t even give you a bonus for Christmas. Four years you’ve worked for this man and he’s never given you a bonus.

          Bryan Coffey with his cleft chin, bushy eyebrows, and penchant for gaudy yellow neckties. You should buy him a pair of tweezers for Christmas.    

          “Hey!” the tourist screams, his breath fogging up the glass. “I need help! Some lunatic ran our car off the road! My wife is injured! We need an ambulance!”

          And you tell him, “Go around the side, to the other door.” And you walk through the kitchen, to the side door where the young man waits impatiently. He’s got a fedora on his plump head and a beige scarf wrapped around his neck. His eyes glasses–the crystal clear lenses, the shiny gold rims–look like they cost more money then you’ll ever make cleaning places like this.

          You told him to go around to the side just in case this guy is lying, just in case he’s really a lunatic waiting to ambush you the minute you open the door. You’ll be safer in the kitchen.

Plenty of sharp objects to defend yourself. But that also means plenty of sharp objects for this alleged maniac to use against you. Still, you feel safer in the kitchen.

          You open the door, slowly, cautiously. You let the man in and he’s panting and wheezing and trying to catch his breath. He tells you that he ran all the way here. That he left his wife in the car. That she banged up her knee and can’t put any weight on it. That they need a tow truck and an ambulance.

          You’re not even supposed to be here today. Of all the days this shit had to happen, it had to happen today.

          You show the tourist to the phone. You let him dial 911 and explain the incident to the operator. You watch him hang up, dial another number, and make arrangements for a tow truck.

          The walk-in, still packed with meat and fish and produce that will surely turn rancid before the next season, turns itself back on when the defrost cycle ends. The fans whir and the motor grinds and groans as it kicks back on.

          Mr. Coffey, the jerk that he is, he wouldn’t even let anyone take anything home to cook for their families. Even if they offered to pay for it. He’d rather let the food spoil and eat the loss of the money than see anyone enjoy it.

Under the fluorescent lights, you can see the panic registered in the tourist’s eyes. And you ask, “What happened exactly?”

You ask as though you weren’t listening to him talk over the phone, because you honestly weren’t listening.

You don’t need this aggravation. You’re tired, cranky. The holiday season is upon us and you haven’t even started buying Christmas presents yet. You still have to decorate, even though you’re not in the holiday spirit. Your neighbors all decorate their houses, so if you don’t decorate, you’re the odd man out.

          And of course you still have to buy a tree. Still have to get wrapping paper. Still have to get cards and stamps and envelopes and cardboard boxes and packing tape to ship presents to distant relatives.

And this tourist stares at you with wide hazelnut eyes behind those exorbitant glasses. The fluorescent lights flicker and hum their insipid tune as the tourist sighs and his lips part as he prepares to tell his story.

          “My wife and I are in town to see her family. We’re not going to able to see them on Christmas so we wanted to give them their gifts now. We were on our way over there when, just down the road on Fulton, this maniac came out of nowhere in an Escalade. He was swerving in and out of the lanes, forced us right off the road. I don’t know if he was drunk or just trying to play chicken with me.”

          “How bad is the damage?”

          “The car will be fine. It’s my wife I’m worried about.”

          “Then shouldn’t you be getting back to her?” In other words, you’re asking him to beat it. You were nice enough to let him in, to let him make his phone calls. You’ve done your good deed for the year and now it’s time for this guy to get back to his wife, his car, and his Armani sweater vests.

          The restaurant world is riddled with phrases and terms the kitchen and wait staff use on a daily basis. The most common term being 86.

          To 86 something basically means to cross it off the menu. You run out of tuna, you tell the staff to 86 tuna.

          And right now you wish this tourist would 86 himself, go back to his wife, go back to the city where he belongs.

          “I’m sorry to trouble you further, but do you have a bathroom I could use? It’s been such a long ride and we never had a chance to stop for anything other than gas.”

          You walk the tourist from the kitchen, through the dining room past the chairs that are flipped upside down on the table tops, and to the lobby. You show him to the bathroom, ask him to please make it quick. That you have to get back to work.

          But he stops just before he reaches the men’s room door.

          The sudden change in room temperature tells the tourist that we are not alone.

          “We hit a cold spot,” the tourist said.

          “Cold spot?” you ask.

          “You feel that? How cold it just got over here?”

          “It’s just a draft. It’s very windy outside.”

          “No, I’m afraid it’s not,” the tourist says. And then he introduces himself, as if you cared to know his life story. “Owen Stillson.”

          “Walter Dandridge, but everyone calls me Walt. I guess you can too.”

          “Well, Walt, I know it’s weird of me to ask something like this…but has anyone ever died here before?”

          You remember hearing a story, back when you first started working there, back when you were bussing tables and scrubbing pots and pans. You heard mutterings about a man who was skinny enough to cram himself inside the dumbwaiter.

          The same dumbwaiter that crushed his head when he accidently fell down the shaft one night. They thought he had walked out, that he quit without notice. They found his body three days later at the bottom of the shaft.

          “Now that you mention it, I think so.”

          “Whereabouts?”

          “Dumbwaiter shaft. That means he would’ve fell down to the basement.”

          “Where’s the basement?”

          “Over there,” you point with one finger to the steel door opposite the men’s room that’s clearly marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

          “Then that’s where we’re heading.”

          86 patience.

“What about your wife?”

          “It’ll only take a minute. Besides, she’s safer in the car than in here.”

          “Just who are you?”

          “Owen Stillson,” he repeats.

          “Yeah, you already said that. I mean, are you like, a ghost hunter or a famous author who writes about haunted places? Why are you so keen on seeing the basement?”

          “I’m not famous or special. I just have a great interest on the subject. I’ve read a lot about it.”

          “So when you say ghosts, what do you mean exactly? Are we talking Casper or Samara? Can you see them or just hear them? Can you like touch them? Shake their hands or give them a fist bump?”

          “Some spirits remain hidden, keep to themselves. Others crave the attention and love to make their presence known. Sometimes, spirits can project themselves in mirrors or other surfaces that reflect.”

          “What’d you mean when you said your wife was safer in the car than in here?” you ask as begin your descent into the basement.

          “I mean that some spirits can be vile, malevolent.”

          “You mean ghosts can hurt you? Like beat you up and take your wallet?”

          “No, but you’ve heard of poltergeists right? Ghosts that move things. Well, these poltergeists are not the friendly type. In fact, their goal is to pretty much make your life a living hell.”

          And you feel like you’re talking to a poltergeist at this very moment. That’s all this tourist is. A pesky ghost who just won’t take the hint.

          You reach the bottom of the stairs. More fluorescent ceiling fixtures illuminate the cold concrete floor. Pipes rattle overhead as Owen, the tourist, scans the room. There’s a locked room where they keep all the wine and liquor bottles. Extra chairs and boxes of excess table clothes and spare candleholders.

          There’s a stack of plywood that Mr. Coffey purchased two years ago for some project that never came to fruition. And propped up against the plywood is a long, narrow, dusty mirror with a huge spider web crack in the center that Mr. Coffey had you take down from the men’s room when some pissed off customer decided to smash it with his fist after a fight with his girlfriend.

          The lights hum and seem to flicker even more so than the kitchen lights. You excuse yourself to check the circuit breaker, make sure everything looks ok. But before you walk away, you notice that Owen, the tourist, isn’t wearing a wedding ring. And though he is pale, you can still see there’s no tan line.

          “What’s your wife’s name?”

          “Samantha.”

          “Samantha Stillson…” you trail off, thinking about that name. Where have you heard it before? And why is this man lying? If he’s married, why isn’t he wearing his wedding ring?

          You look up and see the letters GAR written in red on a concrete support beam. And you think of Gary Paulson, the bartender who sliced his hand open on a broken gin bottle. It was his last night and he wanted to leave his mark.

          So, with the palm of his hand sliced opened, in need of stiches, blood droplets trickling down his fingers, Gary signed his name. Well, most of it. He fainted before he could scribble the Y.

          Now all that remains is a blood stained signature of a clumsy alcoholic who cut up his own hand on his last night. A bumbling bartender who couldn’t even finish writing his own name before he passed out from the loss of blood and the alcohol in his system.

          This is Gary Paulson’s history. His legacy. His contribution to society.

          And you start to recall that hot little number that Gary was dating the last season he worked here. She had a slim, hourglass figure and long, smooth legs that distracted from her ample chest and backside. With a body like that, you didn’t know where to focus your eyes.

          What was her name?

          You check on the circuit breaker. Everything looks fine. You walk back to Owen, the ghost-obsessed tourist. And he kind of reminds you of Gary Paulson in a way. Gary was also into all that spiritual, paranormal garbage.

          He believed in ghosts, believed in the afterlife. He used to talk about a coworker that shared his interests. But you can’t for the life of you remember that person’s name. And you still can’t remember the name of the girl Gary was dating that summer.

          “Can you feel that?” Owen asks. “Can you feel those negative vibes? That wave of negative energy?”

          “I don’t feel a thing other than the cold,” you tell him, shivering slightly. “But what does it mean?”

          “It means there’s definitely a spirit present. And this spirit is angry. Discontent. It can’t find rest. It wants to be heard. It wants you to know its story.”

          “And what is its story?” you ask, playing along.

          “The young man that died here. He’s telling me his death was not accidental.”

          The lights dim and brighten. Dim and brighten. The cold envelops you and you can see your breath every time you exhale.

          And you finally remember that girl’s name. Gary Paulson’s girlfriend. Samantha Stillson.

          Not Owen Stillson’s wife. His sister.

          And the name of that unfortunate soul who fell down the dumbwaiter shaft hits you like a kick in the teeth. The one that Gary Paulson used to talk about. The one that shared his interest in the macabre and the paranormal.

          Owen Stillson.

          You turn to confront him, but he’s gone. Missing. Vanished. 86’d.

          The fluorescents flicker rapidly, blinking. The lights dim, then fade out, plunging you into darkness, obscurity. You feel the cold air circulating around your body. And you feel all those tiny little hairs standing up on the back of your neck, like the spines of a porcupine.

          The lights pop back on and you jump, scream, stagger backwards. You’ve just seen a reflection in the mirror that was not your own.

          The reflection of Owen Stillson. The reflection of what was left of his body after they pulled him out of that dumbwaiter shaft. His skull crushed, face all smashed in, eyes squeezed from the sockets. And you hear him whisper the name of the man who pushed him down that shaft.

          The name of the man who killed him.

          Bryan Coffey.

          You can almost smell the shit in your pants from when your bowels evacuated. You just 86’d your underpants. And as quickly as the apparition appeared in the mirror, it vanishes.

          And you remember that you weren’t even supposed to be here today.

BAD BLOOD: PART FOUR

Genre: Crime Fiction/Murder Mystery

BAD BLOOD

Part Four

By Daniel Skye

          Sunday, January 5^th, 2014.

          Wes Archer was not a happy man when he saw the Sunday edition of the Daily Buzz.

          Valerie Reed had done a two-page spread on the unidentified pyromaniac that her douchebag editor decided to dub Firebug. The name would be all over the internet in hours. Firebug would gain infamy via Facebook and Twitter and Google news searches. His crimes would be documented and studied and dissected through lectures given by college professors for generations to come.

According to the article, the Carter City Police Department had confirmed the fires were not accidental, but intentional. This was a fact the police had not made public.

          In the article, Val mentioned both the fire on the West Side at the Darsky residence and the East Side apartment complex that was torched.

          Wes was gritting his teeth when he came to visit Valerie at her office that day, hoping he didn’t say the wrong thing. He was fuming. He didn’t have to scream “I’m pissed off” for Val to get the message. It was written all over his face.

          “What were you thinking?” Wes asked, teeth still gritted.

          “I’m thinking about my career,” Val said. “I’m thinking I have a job to do. And I’m thinking the people of Carter City have the right to know some deranged lunatic is torching random houses and buildings to the ground. It concerns everybody.”

          “Those facts haven’t been made public record yet,” Wes said. “I could lose my job over this.”

          “Relax,” Val said. “This is the Daily Buzz were talking about. Our office pays dozens of snitches for information. Your department doesn’t need to know where I heard it from. The information could have come from a number of reliable sources.”

          “You’re something else,” Wes said, rolling his eyes. “Is that why you’re fucking me? Is there anything you won’t do to further your career?”

          “You know what? I don’t have to take this shit from you! Fuck off!” Val stormed off, leaving Wes standing alone in the hallway, feeling like he was two inches tall.

          He’d screwed up bigtime. And a bouquet of flowers and dinner at a pretentious French restaurant wasn’t going to smooth things over this time. Wes was going to have to think really hard about how to make this up to her.

          But in the meantime, he had other fish to fry.

* * *

          What they don’t teach you in the police academy is how to deal with a crystal meth addict who’s wearing a vest full of grenades and clutching at an AK-47. What they don’t teach you is how to get used to the sight of gunshots or stab wounds. They don’t teach you about the smell of blood that hits you when you walk into a murder scene. They don’t teach you how to react when some spaced-out junkie decides to dry his eight month old son off in the microwave.

          They don’t teach you how to cope with these ordeals. They just throw you headfirst into the lion’s den and hope you don’t get mauled to shreds.

          But Wes Archer thrives inside that lion’s den. He feeds on it. And right now, with all those negative emotions clinging to him, needed to be purged, Archer was ready for a trip to the lion’s den.

          First, a visit to the coroner’s office was required. Pete Drayton was out to lunch, but Ray Frye was happy to give him the rundown.

          “Toxicology reports are back on the girls. They were drugged. The tests we ran found traces of weed and a powerful sedative in their system. My guess, they were doped. Someone gave them laced weed. Then I guess they dragged them down to the basement and finished them off.”

          “From the looks of it, the girls’ bodies were never moved. Someone must’ve lured them down to the basement. Someone they must’ve trusted.”

          “A boyfriend, perhaps?”

          “Molly Henderson didn’t have a boyfriend. And I already spoke with Calvin Woods, Shannon Reynold’s boyfriend. He didn’t do it. I mean, he’s dumb as fuck, but not a killer. And if he did kill her, he probably would’ve slipped up and confessed to it by mistake.”

          “What about a teacher or a janitor?” Ray speculated. “Someone who knew the school well or had access to the basement.”

          And that’s when a light went off in Archer’s brain.

          It was time to take a ride into the lion’s den.

* * *

          Augusto Hernandez was the high school janitor. He was also a petty crook with a rap sheet longer than the first Games of Thrones novel.

          It came as no surprise to Archer that a man of this caliber was employed by a government-funded school. But what he did make note of was the fact that most of Augusto’s charges seemed to stem from possession of controlled substances.

          To confront Augusto, Wes had to drive right into the belly of the beast. Every cop’s worst nightmare. Skid row.

          According to the police file, 221 Sax Street was still his current address. It was a cheap brownstone apartment. A small, bland brick building sandwiched between to other grey brick buildings.

          Wes parked his Jeep, knocked several times before a woman answered. She had dark hair and spoke broken English. “Ay, what has my boy done now?”

          “Nothing that I know of, ma’am,” Archer told her. “I just need to ask your son a few questions. Right out here is fine.”

          “Augusto!” his mother called, and Augusto came running down the stairs. He joined Archer out on the porch and closed the door behind him.

          “You a cop?” Augusto asked.

          “Detective,” Wes said. “Here to ask you a few questions about Molly Henderson and Shannon Reynolds.”

          “I heard what happened to those girls,” Augusto shook his head. “It’s terrible.”

          “Do you have any idea what they might have been doing in that basement? Any idea how they might’ve gotten down there?”

          “I have no clue,” Augusto said. “I wish I could be more help to you.”

          “Someone lured them down there. Got them high. The weed was laced with a sedative. Any idea who might’ve done that?”

          “I don’t care for your tone,” Augusto said. “I’m not an idiot. I know what you’re implying. And for the record, I never laid a finger on those girls. They were angels in my eyes.”

          “Is that why you killed them?” Wes asked, testing him out.

          Augusto chuckled. “Nice try. Like I said, it wasn’t me. But I think I’ve heard of you before. Your name’s Archer, right?”

          “Yeah, so?”

          Augusto rolled up his sleeve, flashed his tattoo.

          “You’re ESB?” Wes asked.

          “That’s right,” Augusto said, rolling his sleeve back down. “And if you know anything about the ESB, you know we don’t hurt women. Like I said, it wasn’t me. But if I were you, I’d talk to Vernon Keene. I think he’s looking for you.”

* * *

          Dale Craven had questioned the landlord, Herb Blackwell. He’d questioned the tenants and all the neighbors in the surrounding area. Still no clues to that fire on the East Side. Nobody had seen or heard anything besides the fire alarms.

          But things took a bizarre, unexpected turn when Ray Frye called him from the coroner’s office.

          “Dale,” Ray said over the phone, breathing heavily. “We just finished up with the superintendent’s body. You’re not going to believe this one. Or maybe you will. Jason Briggs, the superintendent, was strangled. That’s the official cause of death. It wasn’t the fire that killed him.”

          “Why kill the superintendent?” Dale wondered out loud. “What does he have to do with all this?”

          “Beats me,” Ray said. “I’ll call again if I have anything else for you.”

          “Thanks,” Dale said and hung up. He started tapping his pen against the six-inch-thick file on his desk, trying to think clearly.

          “Where’s Wes Archer?” a familiar voice shouted and Dale spun his chair around to see Vernon Keene walking through the department.

          “I’m his partner,” Dale said. “Maybe I can help you.”

          “I’m here about that fire on the East Side,” Keene told him.

          “You know something about it?” Dale asked, looking for answers anywhere he could find them. He could even ignore the fact it was coming from an unlikely source.

“My sister lived on the top floor of that apartment building,” Keene told him. “She didn’t have a chance to escape. She was…she was burned alive.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“I’m not here for your condolences. I’m going to help you find the person who’s responsible. Whatever it takes. You’ve got all the ESB on your side.”

* * *

          Wes Archer’s mission from Lieutenant Morris was to locate Ellen Frost at all costs and bring her back safely. Archer’s plan was simple in his mind: Find the killer, find Ellen. But this task was going to be anything but easy.

          Ellen had a diary that Wes had skimmed through. Though the entries offered no clues to her disappearance.

          Ellen was the daughter of a police captain. She was as straight laced as they come. Even her friends and classmates couldn’t share a word of gossip about her. She was pure, innocent. And some depraved maniac had her in his grasp, looking to rob her of that purity.

          Archer just hoped he could find her before it was too late.

          The Mechanic was still in the back of his mind. So were the Darsky’s and Shannon Reynolds and Molly Henderson.

          To find a killer this sinister, this depraved, he’d have to think just like him. So Wes was about to take a trip over to the dark side.

          He was about to infiltrate a cult of Satanists.

          But in order to do that, he’d have to look the part.

* * *

          Vernon Keene’s ESB connections led them to an ex-con living on the Upper West Side. Marvin Berry was a firebug who did four and a half years for arson. The CCPD system hadn’t turned anything up on him because it was never on record. The judge was considerate enough to downgrade the charges to destruction of property and reckless endangerment. He was supposed to serve five years but got out early on good behavior.

          Marvin Berry wasn’t pleased to see Dale Craven or his badge, but he let them into his apartment, which reeked of stale cigarettes and cheap gin.

          “I figured you’d come sooner or later,” Berry said. “I read the paper today, heard about the fires. I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t me.”

          “You certainly fit the profile,” Dale insisted.

          “I did some stupid things in my life,” Berry said. “But I’ve never killed anyone. I swear to God. My conscience is clear. I’ve already paid for my sins.”

          “Yeah, yeah, and only God can judge you now. I’ve heard this spiel before. Not interested. I’m more interested in answers.”

          “Why don’t you ask Seth Cambridge?”

          “Who?”

          “He was one of my cellmates in prison. Served eight years for bank robbery. Got out three years before I did.”

          “What would he have to do with this?”

          “He’s still living in Carter City,” Berry told Dale and Keene. “And he’s more of a pyromaniac than I’ll ever be. Just because he was never busted for arson, doesn’t mean he’s not an arsonist.”

          “He confessed this to you?”

          “In prison, you talk about your time on the outside. About what you did to end up in there. Sometimes you brag about the things you didn’t get caught for. Seth confessed to torching schoolhouses, orphanages, libraries, and post offices. Then he moved onto houses. Something about a real estate scam he was working before he got busted. Don’t ask me. I just used to nod and listen when these guys told me things.”

          “What else did Seth Cambridge tell you?”

          “He told me…that he’s killed people before.”

          “He confessed to murder?” Dale asked.

          “Yes,” Berry said.

          “And you never reported it?” Keene spoke up.

          “Why would I? It was probably bullshit anyway. Guys make up stories in there to seem tough, intimidating, ruthless.”

          “If what you’re saying is true, we might need you to testify.”

          “Whatever you need,” Berry nodded. “I’m here to help.”

          “Sure you are,” Dale said. “Just don’t go too far on us. We’ll be in touch.”

* * *

          Dale dropped Vernon Keene off on Elm Street, thanked him for the help and told him he’d call if they found anything on Seth Cambridge.

          On his way back to the office, he checked his phone. One message from Officer Foley.

          “We’ve got another body,” Foley had said on the recording. “Herb Blackwell. The landlord of the apartment complex on the East Side.”

          Just then, as Dale was exiting downtown Carter, he heard the explosion. A department store was up in flames, streams of fire shooting out through the broken windows, the neon sign melting over the rooftop. And it was raining fire ten blocks away.

* * *

          “The police already talk to my son,” Miss Hernandez told the man in the black trench coat. He was tall, his long hair tied back in a ponytail, smoking a cigarette out on the porch.

          “I’m not the police,” the man said. “I’m FBI. Just need a word with your son. I’ll be quick, ma’am. I promise he’s not in trouble.”

          Miss Hernandez summoned Augusto and he stepped out onto the porch, closed the door behind him.

          “I already talked to Detective Archer. I don’t know who you are, but if you guys keep harassing me, I’ll get a lawyer.”

          The Mechanic fired two shots, the silencer muffling both. That doesn’t mean Augusto didn’t feel it. The hot lead pierced his lungs. He slumped down, choking on his own blood, trying to slow the steady flow of blood. But it was already too late. Things were getting dark all around him.

          Right before Augusto closed his eyes, the Mechanic whispered, “My employer sends his warmest regards.”

To Be Continued Soon With Part Five!