Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (4 page)

“Slacker,” I mu
ttered
under my breath.

A
strip of white cloth
lay
draped over the ledge
a few feet away from me.
I picked it up with a
n evidence
baggy
inside out
over my hand
to protect
the strip
from contamination
and
inspected
it closely.
The cloth appeared
to be
made of
cotton
with a row of little red hearts along the edge
, smeared with blood
. My stomach
twisted
, the over-easy eggs I had just eaten sliding
precariously
around the
greasy
link sausage
.
Chances were it belonged to the Stewart girl, though
just
how it had wound up across the street
bewildered
me.
With my one and only clue in my pocket,
I examined the roof
more closely
and spotted a couple of blood drops
along with several deep
fresh-looking
grooves in the concrete
ledge
.
An eerie
sense
of foreboding c
rept
over me,
as if
someone was watching me
. I reached inside my jacket and pulled out my .45
as
I scanned the roof
line
but saw nothing but chimneys, a few aerials and the
closed r
oof door. Still, the
vague
feeling of apprehension did not leave me. As I holstered my weapon and
re
turned
my attention
to the ledge, I spotted a strange substance on the gravel of the roof. It looked like dark gray fish scales
the size of my thumbnail
.

“Damn
,
strange place for fish
.
How the hell did this get here?”

I tagged and bagged it for Munson
, then
leaned over the edge of the roof and yelled down. “Hey you!
”

The uniform
ignored me. I yelled louder and he
jumped and looked
around mystified
unable to pinpoint my voice
.
This was wasting too much time. If I yelled any louder, I would
wake up
the entire neighborhood.
I
cursed
under my breath
a
s
I
stalked off the roof.

“
Call
the precinct
,” I snapped at him as
soon as
I exited the building.
“H
ave them wake up forensics and get them back out here to this roof.”

He looked up.
“That roof? But I thought…”

“Don’t think
.
You’re still a rookie. Just call it in.”
I was in no mood to argue.

He
shrugged,
pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
As I watched him,
I remembered my rookie days and police call boxes
and shook my head. I was getting
too
old.
I carried a cell phone
in my pocket
but
hardly ever
used it
. I
certainly didn’t know how to download all the apps
L
ew
was always informing
me about
.
He could use his cell phone to check his e-mail, text his girlfriends and
surf the internet, though how me managed
those tiny numbers and letters with his beefy fingers, I didn’t know
. Half the time, I couldn’t dial the right number.

Munson would give me hell for the rude awakening but
I
did
n’t
care. We had failed to define the scope of our crime scene properly and had almost lost valuable evidence. I
debated calling Lew but decided to let him sleep a few
more
hours.
One of us needed some sleep.
He would be
pissed
in the morning
, but I badly needed a fresh perspective on all this.
My mind was
mush.
I stood and looked across the street at the victim’s building and
remembered what I had said about our perp having
had
wings
. I
wondered if I had been far off the mark.

****

I had assumed Munson would be livid
at
my calling him back out
to the crime scene
, an attack on his
professional
integrity.
Instead, he was polite and circumspect. The clues I had
uncovered
on the roof were all we had to go on.
Now, h
e was determined to find more. After an hour, he
walked over to me as I stood
well away from the edge of the roof looking out over the city.
Someone had brought me a cup of coffee. I held it cupped in both hands to fight back the early morning chill
.
I had hardly tasted it as I mulled over the facts of the case
s
in my head, trying to get two and two to add up to four but fell short every time.
I looked at Munson
,
noticed
the fati
gue in his face and wondered when he had last had a full night’s sleep.

“The three parallel grooves in the concrete parapet confound me
,” he started. “
They have the appearance of a sharp tool mark or something similar.
The
cotton
cloth had a small piece of elastic waistband, like in
women’s
underwear
.
Judging from the curvature of the waistband, I’d say they would fit our missing girl.
We found a similar pair in her lingerie drawer.
” He
cocked his head to one side
. “The scales are a complete mystery. I
’ll
need a few hours to determine their origin and the blood type
on the cloth
, though you and I both know it will match the missing girl.” He looked around the roof
and shook his head
. “How they got here, I can’t imagine.”

Missing girl
.
Already we had reduced her to a nomenclature, a
thing
.
“
She had a name,
” I
corrected him
, “Patricia Stewart
.
”
A few heads turned in our direction as my voice rose.
“
C
alling her the ‘missing girl’ or ‘the victim’
might make
it easier to deal with
, but
‘
m
issing
’
sound
s
like she might turn up soon
,
pert, smiling and alive
after
going out
for pizza
or
spen
ding
the night with her boyfriend
.
You and
I
both
knew she wo
n’t
.”

Munson stared at me but said nothing. After a few moments, he nodded. “Patricia
.”

The panty thing upset me.
It stank of sexual overtones.
Maybe it was a simple
pervert
going to extremes, but it
did
n’t
quite
ring true. There were too many missing pieces, too many unknowns. This case was less than a week old and
already
I was baffled
, t
hree dead
or missing
girls
so far
with
no
suspect
and few clues
.
The newspapers were having a field day.

“Thanks partner.”

The rough voice startled me out of my contemplation.
I turned to see Lew
striding
across the roof
toward me. He looked angry but I knew it was mostly a bluff. H
e had a spring
in
his
step that
was not
there
last night
. The
few hours sleep
had done him
some
good.

“Try
ing
to solve the case
all
by your lonesome?” he a
sked
.

My coffee was cold and my stomach was churning. I set
the cup on the top of an air conditioner,
rummaged around
in my pocket
until I found
a loose antacid
. I
brushed off the fuzz and
popped it in my mouth
. I hoped it would loosen the knots
tightening
in my stomach.
I pulled up my collar against the
rising
chill
breeze.
The sun was just
beginning to
peek
out
over
t
h
e rooftops
but none of its warmth was getting through the
thick
morning haze that
shrouded
the city
’s outlines
like a
graveyard mist
.

“Couldn’t sleep
anyway
,” I replied
.
“
I t
hought I spotted something on this roof. I got lucky.”

He jerked his head back, mocking me. “Lucky?
You sniffed it out just like you always do
, Tack
.
What do you think
? A
zip line between the buildings?
”

I had
briefly
considered something like that
and dismissed it
. “And then what? No blood on the stairs or in the hallway. If he had something to wrap her in, why not do it over there.” I pointed to her apartment. “No, he watched her from here. I’m sure of it, but
why bring her back here.”
I let my v
oice trail off. It was too early for
idle
speculation, especially crazy sounding speculation.

“It’s just a case, Tack.”
Lew’s voice held a touch of sympathy.
It was Lew’s way of warning me
to
keep my emotions out of it.
Emotions
fog the mind
, s
omething I had often reminded him.
Trouble was I couldn’t
back away from this case
.

“
She was someone’s
daughter, Lew. She needs a champion.
Damn it, t
hey all need a champion.”

He nodded. “Gotcha, Tack, but try to get some sleep.” He wrinkled his nose. “And a shower. You smell
terrible
.”

I perked up remembering the odor I had smelled when I
first
came up on the roof. “Ammonia
,
”
I blurted.

“What?”
he looked at me in confusion
at my outburst.

“Ammonia,
I smelled ammonia
earlier
up here.”

“Like smelling salts? Wh
y
would he need
…?”

I stopped him.
I knew where he was going.
Our perp wouldn’t
need
smelling salts to revive her
if
she was
already
dead. But why the ammonia
odor
?
I
walked over to
Munson
busy scraping concrete dust from the three parallel groves.

“I caught a strong whiff of ammonia when I walked out on the roof earlier. It’s gone now, but I’m sure it was ammonia.”

H
e looked at me
as if
I was going off the deep end. “Ammonia? Up here?” He shrugged. “We’ll check for it, but it’s a long shot. Liquid ammonia would evaporate fairly quickly
in the open air
.”