Rise of a Phoenix: Rise of a Phoenix (6 page)

Tina examined the corpse painstakingly to see if there was any evidence, but came up empty, working from the lower part and slowly moving up the body until finally reaching the head. Carefully, she opened the woman’s mouth, noting that everything seemed normal. Then she opened an eyelid to check for any signs of eye dilation or other unusual signs.

“Uh, guys, we have a problem,” said the doc, sounding confused.

“Why? what’s up, doc?” asked the Captain bracing himself against the sight and trying to hold on to his breakfast.

“Her eyes are gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” replied Tooms, horrified at the thought.

“I mean gone! Not there anymore.” Tina stood up and waved the two orderlies to bag the body and take it downtown. The atmosphere was tense, as the Captain looked as if he was about to explode.

“OK, people, I have had enough of this dirt bag taking our city apart! We are going to find this son-of-a-bitch.” He clenched his fist and shook it at them, more as a gesture of anger and promise than a threat.

“Call in all shifts,” he announced angrily. “We work round the clock if we have to, but I want this guy.”

The teams in front of him were New York City’s finest and if anyone could get the killer, it would be these men and women. McCall knew it and felt the surge of energy that the Captain gave off just in those few words, words that inspired everyone to think that they could do the impossible.

From behind them came a voice that broke the silence, like a soft breeze on a still morning. It was softly spoken but had a hard tone to it:

“Maybe I can help.”

The group turned as one, to find a man dressed all in black; he was sitting on the backrest of a bench, his black shiny boots that rested on the seat of the bench were glinting in the morning sun, and the long black jacket he wore that had fallen behind the backrest was flapping in the breeze.

“Who the hell are you?” asked the Captain, shocked not just by the arrogance of the suggestion that they required help, but wondering just how the hell did he get there and when?

“You have got to be kidding me.” McCall’s jaw hung slack at the sight of the man who had caused her so much trouble and kept eluding her. Now he was finally within her grasp but why was he coming forward? And why now? No, the only question she had, and it was a simple one, was not ‘Who are you?’ or ‘What are you doing here?’ No! The question she wanted to ask was much less complicated. It was, ‘Can I shoot him?’

Tina Franks was busy checking over what remained of the female from Pier 15. She scanned the remains carefully inch by inch, taking photographs of any distinguishing marks such as bruises and scars. In the background there was music coming from her MP3 player that sat happily on top of the stereo; its blue lights broke up the sterile whiteness of the morgue.

McCall entered, her footsteps sounding loud and aggressive. Her expression could have frozen the very depths of hell.

“Hi, what we got, Tina?” asked McCall, trying not to think about the events on the pier, and the details of their ghoulish discovery.

“Well, I have got a Caucasian female with lots missing. What I heard too, is your white knight in black armour put in an appearance.” Tina gave McCall the look that said ‘more information please’.

“Oh really, and what else did you hear?”

“I heard he was British and kind of cute.”

McCall’s glare stiffened. Why was he here, she wondered? Was he following her? It was strange that he always showed up just in time; she shook off the temptation to work out theories. The mystery guy would have to wait—the case came first.

“Are there any similarities with the two other killings?” McCall was desperate for a clue. This guy was good, but in her experience the more comfortable they got as they killed more and more, the more likely it was they would eventually mess up.

Tina stopped what she was doing and took off her slightly scratched eye protectors. “Well, what we have is a man who, for some reason, drains all of his victims’ blood, and removes not just body parts but
whole chunks
of body parts.” She walked between the tables on which lay the remains of the first two victims. “What I don’t get is the kind of parts that have been removed. Most of the ‘trophies crew’ takes a finger or an ear. This is way too extreme.”

“Maybe he is fussy about what he eats.” McCall smiled, trying to lighten the mood, but she couldn’t budge the look of worry on the pretty ME’s face.

“This guy knows how to use a scalpel,” Tina pointed out. “So we’re probably looking for some kind of surgeon.”

McCall looked puzzled. “How do you know?” She moved closer to the most recent corpse, unable to resist her curiosity.

“If you look here, you can see the cuts that were made are straight and even, not jagged and ripped. No, the guy took his time and by the look of the others I would say that this surgery was done with respect more than out of brutality.” Tina shrugged. “You see McCall, the person who did this, did it for a reason. It wasn’t so much about the kill itself like we see so many times, no, the parts he took
meant
something to him because of the way they were removed. And our last vic, the blood wasn’t even hers—it was animal blood, added maybe because he wanted the body to be found more easily. I still don’t understand why he is draining them.” Tina shook her head in apparent disbelief.

McCall sat at her desk when Tooms and Tony returned from interviewing the boss at the law firm where one of the victims had worked. They strolled in, and Tooms sat in the spare chair at McCall’s desk and flipped open his notepad as Tony crashed into his chair and picked up his phone and started to dial.

“So what did you get?” she asked her sweating colleagues, who had been busy.

“Well, we scored,” Tooms told her. “We got the place of work and a name, Miss Karen Lane, aged forty. She had an apartment on the East Side, we are just about to go there once we get a warrant.”

McCall nodded, grateful that, at last, they had a lead of some sort. “Do we know who may have seen her last?” She was hoping to establish a time frame.

“Yeh, we got a Karl Buntee, he is the janitor there, and he reckons he saw her in the parking garage at around three on Saturday morning.”

“Why was she working on a Friday night?” McCall asked suspiciously.

“Well, it turns out they had a big meeting on the Monday, all to do with some high profile case. Seems she had to get the briefs typed up in time for that.”

“OK, so we have a time frame for vic number one,” McCall said, getting up and writing the numbers on another board, this one for time frames; she drew a line from 03:00 hours until the end of the mark that covered Monday, when her body was found.

“So what have we got?” McCall said, perched on her desk. “Vic One, Karen Lane, went missing on Friday and was found Monday night, so on that basis I guess we can presume he only keeps them for a few days.”

The other two joined her at the time-frame board and stared at the puzzle, hoping something would reveal itself.

“Vic Two was found in the park on Thursday, so if he is holding to his time line she must have been taken on the Tuesday. That’s in theory, but until we find out who she is, it’s only speculation. Same with Vic number three.” McCall looked puzzled. “What I can’t get is, the others were posed but Vic Three was hung off a pier. It doesn’t make sense.”

McCall stood and picked up her coffee mug. She needed caffeine, and was hoping that some strong coffee would blow away some cobwebs. She went into the rest room, followed by Tooms and Tony.

The smell of strong coffee hit them with an awakening jolt; picking up the glass beaker she poured herself a cup then offered it to the others, who responded by putting their cups on the surface next to hers. She filled the cups and put back the half full coffee jug into the coffee machine.

“I don’t get it; there is nothing that connects these women,” she began. “We need to find out who the other two vics are, or this isn’t going anywhere.”

The others agreed and they all moved out of the room and made their way back to their desks. As they turned the corner, there by the board stood the mysterious stranger whom McCall had last seen at the crime scene, his hands behind his back. As he studied the board, he couldn’t help but feel he was being watched.

“Nice board,” he said without moving, in an unmistakable British accent.

“Can I help you?” Sam McCall’s voice almost growled with disapproval at just the mere sight of him, let alone the idea of him staring at her information boards.

“Simple but effective,” he continued, but this time he turned slightly just to acknowledge she was there.

“BUT?” she prodded him to continue, almost as if she was waiting for some ‘British’ sarcastic remark, which never came.

“No really, I like your boards, that’s all. I’m sorry if I have offended you in any way.” With that, he moved away from the boards as if he was trying to be conciliatory.

“Thanks,” she spoke, but the words were somewhat hollow and she was unsure how she should react to him.

She grabbed her cup and headed for the restroom to get a coffee, forgetting she already had one. She felt that she just had to get away. However, he followed, just like a lost child on his first day at school.

“Are you following me?” she growled, eyes blazing.

“Coffee,” he replied, holding up the coffee-filled jug.

“What?” Her expression went from anger to bewilderment in a second.

“I said, do you want a coffee?”

McCall stood like a deer in headlights, then remembered the full cup at her desk and left him in the restroom to make himself a drink. The other two detectives, somewhat bemused by this whole display, just sat back and observed this strange behaviour with pleasure.

She was busy typing something on the computer and had failed to notice the British guy standing beside the empty chair next to her desk; he coughed politely just to arouse her attention; she looked out of the corner of her eye and saw him waiting.

“What now?” Her tone was one of weariness and irritation.

“May I?” He indicated the battered looking chair. Its brown coloured fabric lay loose on the cushioning, yet it did look comfortable, somehow homely. She raised a hand as if to say ‘whatever’, but continued to look at the screen in front of her.

Taking a swig of the brown liquid, his face winced almost immediately as his taste buds were assaulted by the worst coffee he’d tasted in years.

“What’s the matter, coffee too much for you?” she said with a grin, taking a swig from her own cup, trying to ignore the foul taste in her own mouth. “I thought a big strong man like you could handle it,” she smiled again.

Even though she was laughing at him he couldn’t resist enjoying this tiny chink in her armour. “You know, you have a nice smile, you should use it more often, it suits you.”

She stopped and looked away, embarrassed she had let her guard down.

He stared at the board over and over, but could not make any sense or connection; hell they did not even know who the other victims were, so a connection at this point was almost impossible.

The British man looked at the photos and the timeline associated with the first vic, but nothing was coming to him. He gave up and he raised his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. They had been there hours and it had all blurred into one big mess,

“Would you like a coffee, detective?” he asked, rising from his chair.

“No but thanks,” McCall replied. “Hey, one thing, when you use a cup you need to check the ones with marks on, they belong to people.” She had pointed it out because he had used a cup belonging to one of the detectives on another shift.

“Got it, look out for marks,” he said, going into the coffee room. Seconds later he rushed back and started looking at the photos. “It can’t be—can it?” He spoke softly as if nobody else was present, then shot off towards the elevator.

“What’s the matter, coffee get to you?” she called after him, making detectives Tooms and Tony laugh.

“No, the marks did,” he said, bolting for the elevator.McCall just stared at the other two, who were just as confused as she was. Tony made a crazy person gesture with his index finger, and seconds later, they all got up and followed him, just in case they’d missed something that he had picked up on.

TEN

Down at the morgue Tina was in the back room checking some files. It had been a long day and she longed for the weekend to begin, because she and some of her girlfriends were planning to go to a new club and it sounded good. She started to dance to a little tune that had come up on her MP3 player and the mood just took her over, so she continued to boogie straight into the operating room where she saw a tall man dressed in black leaning over one of the bodies. She immediately stopped dancing and resumed her professional demeanour.

“Hey, excuse me, can I help you?” Tina’s voice was calm and steady despite the sudden shock of seeing this unexpected stranger.

“I’m sorry, doctor, I’m working with Detective McCall upstairs and I noticed something. It may be nothing, you see—” he was cut off in mid-sentence.

“It’s OK, Tina, he is sort of with me,” McCall explained as she entered the room with Tooms and Tony.

Dr Tina nodded towards the stranger and grinned to her friend McCall. Sam let her eyes roll back in their sockets in disapproval, but Tina made a ‘No problem’ signal with her fingers.

“OK, English guy, what’s up?” McCall felt she had to sound as if she wasn’t impressed, but deep down she hoped he’d found something, anything.

“You said about the marks, what marks?” McCall asked him, was stumped by what he may have seen, something they might have missed. Even Tina looked confused.

“There were no marks on the body, only those he made himself,” the ME growled, furious at the accusation she had missed something.

“What I mean is, all the areas of body remaining had some sort of mark or fault,” the Englishman said. “Vic One had a tattoo on her back—that’s why he only took the front part of her body. Vic Two had scars on her one leg and one arm, also she had piercings and, well, Vic Three was pretty clean so—”