Head Shot (A Thriller): A Crime and Suspense Thriller (4 page)

Ten

The pathology lab was the last place in the world Ray Mitchell wanted to be right now.  The room gleamed with stainless steel, from the gurneys and tables, to the knives, scalpels, syringes and beakers.  To the homicide detective it was all one shiny, sanitized symbol of death and decay.

Herb Kellen had been Milwaukee's head pathologist for as long as Ray Mitchell could remember. He was tall, well over six and a half feet in height, but rail thin, tipping the scales out at one hundred thirty pounds at the most.  He had a severe crewcut which only served to accentuate his gaunt appearance.  Small, beady eyes and a very large, hawkish nose took up the majority of his face. 

He had the physique of a long-distance runner, but Ray idly wondered if the reason Kellen was so thin had to do with his job.  After all, when Ray attended one of these, he was so nauseated that he could eat nothing but salads for about a week.

"Late as usual, eh Ray?" Herb said, raising an eyebrow.

It was a long-standing joke between the two, both of them full well knowing that Ray always arranged to be late to the autopsy, he just couldn't stand the sound of a saw cutting through human bone and tissue, it was far worse than a crime scene and more than enough to give him nightmares.

"Looks like I missed all your handiwork," said Ray, feigning disappointment as he studied the remains of Lisa Young.

The beautiful young woman was now reduced to a mass of incisions and retractions, a shell of parts extracted for examination, like a car stripped before being sent off to the junkyard for final demolition.

"Funny how that always seems to happen," replied Herb, a slight smile on his face.

Ray looked away from the body on the table, he would never get entirely used to this.

"What'd you find?" he asked, now forcing himself to look back at the body, it was his job, after all.

"There was a deep bruise at the base of her skull that extended partially down her neck, caused by a blunt object.  It certainly would've knocked her unconscious."

Ray took out his notebook and began writing.

"There were also a series of bruises around her face, forehead and jawline.  They are small, about the size of a man's fingertips."

Herb Kellen paused and shook his head.

"What?" Ray asked.

The pathologist moved to the head of the table and lifted the dead girl's lips.

All of her teeth had been removed.

"What the hell..." said Ray.  At the crime scene, he hadn't seen the extent of damage that had been to the girl's mouth, and his head momentarily swam.  His knees felt weak.

"Judging by the size of the holes left, and the jagged nature of the tearing," said Kellen, "I would guess they were ripped out with very little fanfare."

His long bony index finger, protected safely inside clear plastic surgical gloves, pulled the dead girl's top lip higher, revealing more of the bruised gums, caked with blood.

"You can see here," he said, pointing to a small row of rough incisions, "that some kind of tool was used to extract the teeth, probably a small pair of pliers, perhaps needlenose."

He removed his finger from the dead girl's mouth, and her lips plopped back into place.

Herb Kellen walked back to the middle of the table, directly across from Ray Mitchell.

"At first, it seemed very odd to me. But things became clearer when I put together the reason for the fingerprint bruises and what we got back from the stomach content analysis."

“Don’t tell me, I already know," Ray.  He was on the verge of vomiting.

Ray focused on the pathologist's tie clip.  It was silver, matching the room, and was a miniature golf club.

"So how did she die?" he asked.

"Asphyxiation," said Kellen.

"He strangled her?" Ray asked.

The pathologist shook his head.

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly?" repeated Ray.

The pathologist picked up the clipboard again, and flipped through some scribbled notes.

"Her larynx and esophagus show clear damage.  We've already discussed the contents of her stomach."  The pathologist abruptly stopped, as if he had just given Ray the necessary information.

Ray eyed the pathologist closely.

"Am I stupid?" he asked.  "I'm not following you."

Herb Kellen set down the clipboard and looked the detective in the eye.

"Look, Ray," he said.  "She was choked to death, but it could have happened during the sexual assault, after her teeth had been removed."

Ray began pacing back and forth before he flipped his notebook closed.

"Call me when you find out more."

Kellen nodded.

Ray left the room and walked outside.  The pathology lab was in the basement of the coroner's office, kitty corner from the Criminal Investigations Bureau and just blocks from Lake Michigan.  Ray turned his face toward the big body of water, hoping to catch the lake breeze.  The cool, fresh air was a welcome relief from the stale, clinging stench of death that lingered in Herb Kellen's domain.

Eleven

Hurtling along at 30,000 feet with a screaming baby in the seat behind her, Carrie DeMarinis reached a conclusion: neither condoms, the pill, or an IUD were as effective birth control methods as flying four hours on a cramped airplane.

She was scrunched into seat 14B on flight 247 from Newark to Milwaukee, and for the last hour and a half she had been forced to listen to the baby behind her screeching like a lunatic in an insane asylum, and the girl in front of her who kept peering over the seat at Carrie, trying to engage her in a game of peek-a-boo.  But Carrie wasn't playing.  Carrie was pissed.

The flight had been delayed an hour, then they had been stranded on the runway for another forty-five minutes, and finally, after they'd gotten up into the air, the baby behind her nearly shattered Carrie's eardrum with a howl that would make a pack of timberwolves jealous.

Jesus Christ, the thought of listening to that noise day in and day out was mind-boggling to Carrie.  How had her mother raised six kids pretty much by herself?  Incredible.  She took solace in the fact that there was a brand-new box of condoms in her purse, no way was she leaving anything to chance.

Carrie was looking forward to hanging out for the weekend with Harriet, her roommate from college.  Harriet was an attorney in Milwaukee and had just finished a big case and invited her best friend for a weekend of fun and possibly some debauchery.  So Carrie had decided to hop on a plane to Milwaukee.

Now, she sat back and tried to close her eyes, but the rumbling in her stomach forced them open.  A bag of pretzels was just not doing the trick, since when did they stop serving peanuts?  At least you could feel like you ate something with peanuts, but these pretzels, you might as well eat plain lettuce for all the good it did.

A tormented scream caused Carrie to jump. This baby is going to be an opera singer, she thought to herself, and after her heart stopped beating ninety miles a minute she had another thought.

Please, Harriet, please be at the gate waiting for me.

Twelve

They chose themselves. 

He had very little say in the process.  Oh sure, he thought to himself with a smile, he wasn’t
exactly
an innocent bystander.  But ultimately the selection process began and ended with them.  Maybe they chose to display their bodies in a certain way, or invited a judgment on their morality, or maybe they showed up just when his gnawing hunger couldn’t take it anymore.

That’s why some of them apologized to him.  A few of his girls had used the very last moments of their time on Earth, the few scant breaths they had left in their lungs, to apologize to him, to accept the responsibility for everything that had just happened, and what was destined to happen at the brutal end of their short lives.

If they didn’t have a say in the matter, then why did they say they were sorry?

Joe shrugged his shoulders, loosened his neck muscles.  He was hungry.  Lisa Young no longer did it for him.  He couldn’t orgasm when he thought about what he’d done to her, as beautiful as the process had been.  She was old news.

Now, he stumbled on a quaint little park just a few short blocks from the girl who had presented herself to him time and time again, practically begging for it.

He parked the car and waited a moment, studying the houses on the other side of the park.  He saw a few lights, but no one was out and about.

The dome light was long gone, he’d removed it years ago so when he opened the door, the car remained dark.

He shut it quietly and didn’t bother locking it.  The car was so ordinary and unimpressive that no one would think of stealing it.  Plus, he didn’t plan on spending a whole lot of time here.  He’d get what he needed, and be gone.

Only one dog barked at him, a little toy dog from the sound of it. Not loud enough to attract any real attention.  He made his way to the house, to the address he had discovered quite easily.

The key to everything he had learned was confidence.

Act
like you belong.

And people will assume you belong.

It was all about the walk.  Shoulders back, head up.  A bit of a swagger, even.

He didn’t even pretend to read the house number, even though he did. Instead, he turned casually into the driveway and walked to the back of the house.  There was no motion light, he already knew that from previous reconnaissance trips.

Joe slipped along the back wall and stood near the small patio that led to the back door.

This was the only tricky part.

His next
girlfriend
, as he liked to call them, was no stranger to crime.  It was quite possible she had an alarm system.  And he hadn’t been able to determine if that was the case.

So now, he slid along the wall, looking through the windows for any sign of a keypad.

There was a small kitchen table, a hallway with a bench and an umbrella holder.  No lights.  No keypads.

He slid his sleeve over his fist and punched out the lowest square near the back door, his body tense for the sound of an alarm.  Nothing happened.

Nothing cut his arm as he reached through and undid the back lock. Joe stepped quickly through the door and shut it behind him.  He paused a moment to wait for any sign of an alarm, or a neighbor’s light suddenly coming to life.

After a few moments, he decided that no one had seen him make his entrance.  He went back to the door, and cleaned out the broken pieces of glass.  Joe knew from his research that she typically entered the side door, ignoring the front and the back.  The house had no garage, so she parked, opened her car door, and went directly into the house via the door on the side.

But he rarely took chances and wanted to make sure she that if she came to the back door, she wouldn’t notice a bunch of broken glass.

He cleaned up, relocked the door, and moved inside the house.

The smell of perfume, mixed with a slightly tangy scent of female habitation, aroused him.

There were plenty of shadows in the house.

She wouldn’t notice one more.

Thirteen

The law and plenty of cannabis is what made life worth living for Harriet Bednarski. 

Candles flickered in the dark living room of the lower flat on Milwaukee's East side.  Delicate swirls of incense smoke wafted across the room and along with the bouncing rhythm of the Grateful Dead served to fill the small space with a festive atmosphere that somehow also managed to be rather cozy.

Harriet was somewhat fond of her neighborhood, but of course, she hadn’t come to Wisconsin by choice, that was for sure.  She had tried to pass the bar in four different states but failed miserably in each attempt.  Finally, Harriet succeeded in passing Wisconsin's bar exam which had a reputation among struggling law students as being one of the easiest in the country.  A shining star of mediocrity for the incompetent lawyers of tomorrow.

She would have preferred to be anywhere but Wisconsin, she even hated the Packers with a passion.  Every time she turned on the television it was Packers this and Packers that, there was nothing this state had to be proud of other than its football team.

Harriet lit her bong and inhaled the deep, bitter smoke from the weed in her pipe.

She was looking forward to seeing her best friend and knew she couldn’t get too high as she had to be able to drive to the airport and pick her up.  But with a few minutes to spare, Harriet sank into the cushion on her futon and crossed her legs, feeling the faint buzz of the high-quality pot start to surround her brain and give it a massage with its gentle and oh-so-knowing fingers. 

She was tired from chasing clients all day.  She handed her card out on buses, at bars, at parties, to neighbors, the paperboy, anyone she ran into her card was out and in their hands in a matter of seconds.  Her father, himself a successful lawyer, told his wayward daughter that any good company always has a solid business plan which would also include a good marketing plan.

Harriet had come up with such a plan. 

It consisted of hanging out in seedy bars whose patrons most likely had or were likely to have brushes with the law, in which case they could turn to someone they knew, someone they trusted, someone they got high with on a regular basis.  In many cases, Harriet was just the gal they were looking for.  Not some stiff, starched corporate boy in a dark suit and slicked back hair.  They wanted a lawyer who could tell them what to say to the judge and then go out in the courthouse parking lot and roll a big doobie.

She unfolded her legs and slowly stood, the buzz now graduating to gently rolling waves.  If Harriet Bednarski had her way, the phrase would never have been "to get high," it would've been "to float one," because that's exactly what it felt like to her, not high like in an airplane but floating gently like on a raft at sea.

Harriet floated her way across the room and turned the stereo up slightly to compensate for the deeper buzz she was getting and then stepped into the kitchen.

Her bloodshot eyes never saw it coming.

A fist lashed out of the darkened doorway, smashed into her mouth, crushed her lips, and sent blood spurting out and down her chin.  A second blow connected on the point of her chin and she saw a circle of stars above her and heard, but didn't feel, her head hit the floor.  The ceiling was swimming, tilting at angles, even changing colors, like a kaleidoscope.

A face leered down at her, a face with one eye looking off slightly in the wrong direction.

It was a face that she recognized.

A kick to the ribs forced Harriet Bednarski to close her eyes as she felt something give inside and she knew she was seriously hurt.

She felt the intruder tie her legs together, and then she was pushed onto her stomach and her hands were tied behind her back.  Her heart raced inside her chest and she spat out a mouthful of blood.

She felt anger rising inside her through the cloud of marijuana still fogging her brain as she kicked and struggled to get loose but the rope binding her arms and legs held tight.  Another kick to the ribs and she groaned inwardly, sensing what was to come.

Harriet felt a hand on her head and then she was jerked upright by the hair as a fist slammed into her mouth again, sending blood gushing from her nose and she saw stars dancing merrily before her eyes.  Her head slumped forward and her chin sank onto her chest.

  The music was still bouncing along on the stereo and Harriet felt each beat of the bass drum reverberate painfully in her head.

She lifted her head up and looked at the man now standing before her.

"Joe..." she said.

Harriet saw the man flinch at the sound of her voice.

"Joe...why are you doing this, what do you want?" she asked.

The man stepped forward and placed a hand on top of Harriet Bednarski's head, then caressed her hair and ran a hand down the side of the young lawyer's face.

A finger trailed down and outlined Harriet’s lips, caressing them.

From behind her assailant's body, Harriet saw a blue handled needlenose pliers emerge, held tightly in the man's hand.  At the same time, she felt the hand on top of her head tighten in an ironlike grip as her head was pulled violently backward.  As she felt the metal grip of the tool clamp her lip against his front tooth, Harriet Bednarski prayed to a God she didn’t believe in that she would pass out. 

She did.  Eventually.