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'The Undertaker'

If you could save a million lives by taking one ... would you?

'A psychic serial killer is eliminating those responsible for a crime as yet uncommitted, a crime against Humanity, claiming his actions will save every unborn child in America. But for Senior Detective Gabe Quinn it's just another nut case that needs cracking, until everything turns personal ...'

NovelScript

(Crime Thriller)

Chapter One

~ I

Morality was overrated.

At first Randall had struggled with the concept, as would any decently intelligent human being. Balancing out the rights and the wrongs was a matter of perspective. It all boiled down to personal interpretation.

He thought about it some more as he unfurled the blanket and laid it out on the gritty concrete, as though readying for a picnic.

It was dungeon-dark beneath the bridge. Perfect conditions for him to go about his business unobserved. He’d waited for the city to fall asleep before making his move. Waited for the lacklustre locals and the airhead tourists to return to their Valium-induced comas. Now he was alone with his plans.

There was a kink in the blanket. He patted it out with a gloved hand.

His therapist had once told him that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. The trick was in separating the truly magnificent deeds from the self-serving gestures. Fortunately for Randall he was good at tricks. With principles based on personal, incontrovertible proof – not the ramblings of long-dead prophets – a rationale based on primal instinct rather than fanciful sentiment had quickly settled over him.

It had to be this way, he knew.

Cosmic ordering.

Satisfied that the scene was all but set, he carefully retraced his steps back to his waiting automobile. It was hard going in the dark without a flashlight. But needs must; he didn’t want to attract attention just yet.

He scaled the steep concrete slope that formed the LA River channel in half a dozen bounds, wondering if anyone would ever understand him or even appreciate his actions. His therapist never had. Neither his parents nor his teachers. Perhaps it was simply because he communicated on a level much too high for them to reach. At least this way the message was fundamental. Visual and visceral. Basic as breathing.

Randall’s eyes narrowed in the glare of the street lights as he crossed the Union Pacific rail track and strolled casually towards the inconspicuous black rental parked in the deep shadow of the Seventh Street Bridge. The car was almost invisible, but he could feel the heat of the engine pushing against the early morning chill.

He lit up a cigarette, perched himself on the hood while he savoured the heavy European tobacco and thought about the future.

There was time to call the whole thing off. Time to get back in the car, drive away, leave it all behind. But, then, what would that achieve? Who else would stop the coming storm? Who else even knew it was on its way?

He blew out smoke rings while he listened to the sleeping city.

Smoking killed. But the thought didn’t faze him. He was convinced he wouldn’t live long enough to worry about cancer or coronary heart disease. Dicing with death was risky business. He’d never play with grandchildren, never while away his retirement on golfing holidays, never grow old in a home, pissing away his dignity. He’d given up, once or maybe twice – but what was the point when he enjoyed it so much?

He sucked the cigarette down to the filter before flicking the butt into the night. Then he popped open the trunk and gently lifted out the sleeping child.

A dog barked in a nearby alley.

He waited, breath held for fifteen whole seconds as he slowly closed the lid. If he was caught now it would all be over. Years of painstaking preparation and self-sacrifice would all be for nothing. He couldn’t allow that to happen. The future depended on his success tonight, and more similar nights to come. This was barely the beginning. The tip of the iceberg. Nervy stuff. But he was sure he’d get used to it. He had to get used to it. There was no going back now.

Holding the child’s limp body close to his, Randall made his way back across the tracks, back through the gap in the chain-link fence, back down the precarious slope into the inky blackness that skulked beneath the bridge. He kept the child’s warm head tucked under his chin all the way. It’s long red hair smelled like candy.

With the child lying on the blanket, he made some final adjustments to the scene. Everything had its place. He couldn’t afford mistakes. Like any artist, presentation was paramount in Randall’s line of work. A lock of hair out of place here, an unfastened button there, a giveaway boot print – all were unacceptable.

Everything had to be just right.

Besides, playing mind-fuck with the Death Detectives appealed to him.

He spent the next thirty minutes or so chain-smoking down by the water’s edge, where the air stank of urine. Thick as bleach. Needling the back of his nose. He stood quietly, watching the child, with smoke lingering around his head, curling in the cool night air like the wings of some fallen angel.

Could he do this? Could he pull this off? Did he have a choice?

Being gifted was sometimes a burden, he realised at last.

Still, it made life a little less humdrum.

When he had no more cigarettes left to smoke, Randall returned to the child and kissed it on the cheek. Such a beautiful child. But destined for such terrible things.

Motive aside, would anyone truly understand his calling? Would the bumbling cops or the bloodthirsty press go straight for the jugular and blindly ignore the glaringly obvious? Would the great Celebrity Cop live up to his own expectations where time and again he’d failed before? Thinking of the great Celebrity Cop filled Randall’s heart with darkness. Did he really care what the world thought of him as long as the ends justified the means?

Steadying his resolve, he slipped a syringe from his pocket and gently inserted it into the soft downy flesh next to the child’s naval.

This was his calling.

It always had been.

As unavoidable as death.

He squeezed the syringe.

It felt strangely exciting and easier than he’d imagined.

~ II

This was the part of the job I hated the most.

Seeing dead kids.

No matter how many times I hauled myself through the process it never got any easier.

Some things are like that.

We are told, as children, that fear comes from not knowing. On this particular occasion I knew exactly what to expect; I knew the horror that awaited me – and yet fear was gripping my stomach like a vice. The rationalist within me argued it was my old ulcer in need of lubrication, when really, if I was completely honest, I was chilled to the core at the thought of what was to come.

Being a father does that, I guess.

~ III

It was early dawn on a sepia January morning in Los Angeles, the kind that sucks the warmth right out of the skin. I should have been in bed, oblivious to all that is terrible. Instead I was attending a murder scene.

“Get us as close to the fence as possible.” I told Jamie Garcia who was doing the driving. “Watch the railway line.”

Jamie gave me one of those sideways glances that women do when they want a man to know they have all their bases covered. My fledgling partner of the last three weeks skipped the unmarked police car over the rail tracks and brought us within an inch of the chain-link fence, just to prove a point. I had to hand it to Jamie; her composure was tight-lipped and determined – a far cry from my own jittery unease. Anyone would think this was my first child homicide, instead of the other way around.

“You think it’s the same killer?” Jamie asked as she killed the engine.

It was an expected question; I’d been asking it myself all the way from the Station House. Two murders in as many days, both by the same hand. I wasn’t holding out any hope, and told her so.

We climbed out into air as chilly as a morgue.

Even in LA, winters were getting too cold for me. Florida kept calling. Grace, my daughter, had moved down there with her job and was busily engaged in trying to coerce her grouchy old Daddy into early retirement by phone three times a week. It was a nice gesture. But only that. At fifty-nine, my pension wouldn’t kick in for another six years. By then, Grace would probably have moved on, gotten herself into a long-term relationship with some alligator wrestler and forgotten all about her efforts to uproot me down to the Everglades.

I pulled up my collar. “How do I look?”

“You want a straight answer, Gabe? You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Jamie. Be candid next time.”

Truth was, I’d looked like shit since Megan, my wife, had passed away almost eighteen months ago. Was it really that long? The realisation momentarily took my mind away from one horror to another.

I popped an antacid pill in my mouth and gave Jamie a disagreeable pout.

A handful of patrol cars were already parked beneath the overbearing bulk of the Seventh Street Bridge, I saw. Two other vehicles were faced nose-in against the fence, like us – a plain-clothed Crime Lab van and a long black mortuary car with smoked windows. I felt a finger of trepidation scratch at my stomach.

The crime scene lay under the dark, ribbed underbelly of the bridge itself, down by the murky LA River. In my book it was one of the worst places imaginable. I couldn’t count the number of times one trail or another had led to this place. For this was the place where the missing showed up. Either drugged or dead, and sometimes both.

We flashed our badges at a bleary-eyed patrolman sporting a flashlight and slipped through a torn panel in the chain-link fence.

The call had found its way to us forty-five minutes from the end of our double shift. Timing had never been this old dog’s forte. Of course I’d argued our case with Hollenbeck’s Duty Sergeant – since the location of the crime scene lay a fraction outside of Central’s jurisdiction – but the DS had smelled my baloney all the way down the street and had bought none of it.

He was a sour kraut kid, I was sure.

“The Captain reckons it’s your boy, Quinn,” he’d told us over the radio. “Same MO. That’s why he wants you over there. Quick as shit off a hot shovel.”

I’d felt the blood drain from my face.

My Boy.

Funny how just two simple, normally unassuming words can cut you clean to the core. As though the killer somehow belonged to me.

My ankles began to protest as we edged down the incline.

Under the bridge I could see a forensics team poring over the scene, meticulously cataloguing potential bits of evidence in the glare of several portable lamps. They were bagging and labelling. Moving outwards in slow, precise circles. Nothing like you see in the movies. Death is far from glamorous. No Gucci sunglasses or Jimmy Choo shoes here. These boys and girls from the Crime Scene Unit wore surgeon’s slippers, and had their hair safely netted back. In the harsh light they looked like FAA inspectors recovering debris from a plane crash.

“You okay back there?” Jamie called over her shoulder.

“Sure,” I lied. “Doing just dandy.”

Every nerve in my body was jangling. It felt like someone was playing a bad Scott Joplin rendition in my stomach.

~ IV

The first officers on the scene had rigged up a cordon between the concrete columns supporting the overpass. Here, within these drab surroundings, the bright yellow tape was a stark barrier cutting across the gloom.

Several uniforms were on guard duty, I saw, looking ill at ease. Another, down near the water’s edge, was quietly parting with his evening meal, trying unsuccessfully to silence his embarrassment. My sympathy went out to him; that was me, last time I’d visited this dreadful place.

Visions of a similar morning eighteen months earlier prickled at my memory.

The Piano Wire Murders.

The blood-soaked body of a fourteen-year-old boy had been found trussed with piano wire in this exact same spot. It had been plain to see he’d struggled to free himself; the metal had cut down to the bone in places, leading to fatal blood-loss. He might have summoned help in time had the killer not cut out the boy’s tongue. Eighteen months down the line still wasn’t long enough to dilute the vividness of my memory. I could still see the child’s lifeless eyes glaring up at me, demanding to know why I had arrived too late to save him.

Like so many murders these days, the killer known as The Maestro had never been found. He was still at large, composing himself, waiting to strike a chord of fear in our hearts at some future interval.

I shook myself back into the present.

Captain Miguel De La Hoya of the Hollenbeck Division acknowledged our arrival with a curt nod, broke off his conversation with one of his men and met us at the tape.

De La Hoya is a bulldog of a man – short and round in a sturdy kind of way. Like the canine in comparison he has a permanently squashed expression folding up his square face, with dark, almost brooding eyes. I have known Miguel and his wife, Maria, on a social footing since Megan and I first moved out here from Tennessee fifteen years ago. Back then he was a much slimmer desk sergeant, and I less grey. How the years had changed us both. At first glance, his lived-in face can be mistaken for trouble. But inside he is as soft as a plain old puppy dog.

“Senior Detective Gabriel Quinn.” The Police Captain gave me a welcoming hug. “How’s my old friend shaping up? I see you’re still looking as shit as ever.”

I ignored Jamie’s smile.

He handed us each a pair of plastic slippers to go over our day shoes. We slipped them on.

“Word has it my boy’s been playing up again.”

“Your boy’s spooked half my men.” De La Hoya acknowledged with a sombre expression. I could see by his eyes the situation was worse than dire.“Never seen anything like this before - and I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with plenty of child homicides in my time. You two ready for this?”

“Not really.” I confessed.

Jamie just nodded.

The victim was a little girl, no older than nine or maybe ten. She was lying face up on what looked like a small tartan blanket – the kind they sell in automobile accessory stores for protecting the velour against pet hair. She looked so tiny and fragile lying here in this wasteland. A fading flower on a patch of coarse concrete. She was wearing an ankle-length denim skirt with matching jacket. Pink carnations were stitched into the dark blue fabric, I noted, where they formed little posies around the pockets. A complementary floral blouse was buttoned up to her chin, and her fiery red hair had been carefully spread out like a halo around her head.

Even in death she was tragically pretty.

But her lips were the colour of her denim.

I forced myself to breathe.

“Who found her?”

“A bag lady. Reported it to one of the volunteers over at the Mission on Fifth. They phoned it through and we despatched a patrol car as a matter of courtesy.”

“How long’s she been down here?” Jamie asked as she snapped on her standard issue latex gloves.

“No signs of rigor – so we reckon less than a couple of hours.”

“What about sexual assault?” Jamie’s voice was matter-of-fact.

“Not as far as we can tell. You’ll have to confirm that with the Medical Examiner.”

My legs carried me forward as if in slow-motion.

The little girl might have been sleeping had it not been for the positioning of her limbs. Her legs were dead straight, feet angled up on their heels – an uncomfortable posture for the living to hold – and her hands were folded across her chest in the customary pose of interment. It was as if somebody had stolen a deceased child from out of a casket and left her here.

Acid surged in my throat. I held on to it out of sheer embarrassment.

The sight confirmed what I already knew: that there is something even more indecently repugnant about a child homicide. Something that doesn’t just affront our sense of right and wrong, it defies all human logic.

Our previous two victims had been laid out exactly like this, ceremoniously, as if dressed for a funeral – with a neat cross of ash on the brow and ragged ring of rose petals surrounding the body. No obvious signs of trauma. No blood. No puncture wounds. No ligature marks. Just an unsettling funereal calmness about it all.

But neither of the previous scenes had been as grim as this.

No wonder my head was reeling. I think it was trying to out-manoeuvre my gut.

Jamie touched a tender finger against the girl’s blue lips, and I watched, horrified, as she applied a little pressure. But the girl’s mouth remained defiantly closed.

“Glued.” Jamie said. “Just like the other two.”

“This your boy?” I heard De La Hoya ask from someplace far away.

I managed a weak nod.

I was feeling sick to my stomach.

I would have gladly run a three minute mile if only my old legs were game.

My rubbery knees buckled and I picked up one of the rose petals. It was a damp slice of black velvet between my fingers, on the brink of crystallizing. I rubbed at it, crumbling it up. The sensation was abnormally calming.

This was my boy all right. And now he’d murdered a child.

I cursed myself for failing to apprehend him.

We spent some time studying the scene and ironing out jurisdiction technicalities before Jamie and I eventually floated away – she with renewed determination to catch our killer and I hoping the numbness in my arms would pass before we got back to the car.

We left our plastic slip-ons with the officer working the police tape and climbed towards the growing daylight.

As we left the murder scene behind, the boys and girls from the Crime Lab resumed their important work. They drifted in to surround the little girl’s body like ghosts coming to claim one of their own.

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