The Catcher in the Eye (America's Next Top Assistant Mystery Book 1) (5 page)

“You’ve got a
point,” he said, resting his chin in his hand. “Except that even feminization
surgery does not change the Y chromosome into an X chromosome. Besides that,
clients are not the only people she had met.”

“That makes a
gazillion of suspects, literally.”

“I know.”

“So, the
possibility of the killer being a woman is as high as that of being a man?”

“Theoretically so,
perhaps. At the same time, there’s this piece of statistics which goes that a
murderer being a man is considerably higher than that of a woman. Still, exceptions
do exist.”

Then he flicked on
the remote and switched on the 72-inch flat screen TV sitting on the file
cabinet by the side wall. Daytime TV show was going on. A female reporter was
feeding on updates of
Eyeball Snatcher
murders in a rather breathless
tone.

Back in the
studio, the talk show host, a middle aged man with grey hair was speaking to
his assistant-in-the-show. ‘By the way, Mellissa, what do you think is the
killer’s purpose of taking away the eyeballs from the victims?’
The
assistant, a young blonde with
I’m-too-professional-to-smile-like-a-moronic-woman
stern expression went ‘I have no idea, and personally, I don’t even want to
know. It’s way gruesome.’

“She’s trying to
appear ‘Oh, I’m so innocent, and I’m too good a girl to imagine hurting someone,’
or a total airhead with nothing between the ears,” snorted Archangel.

“Isn’t that a
little too harsh?” I said. “It’s normal for being clueless of the motive for
taking the eyeballs out of other people. I can completely agree with her that
even imagining the reason for poking out someone’s eyeballs is too gross. It
makes most people sick.”

“Says a woman who
has this daring idea to push someone into an active volcanic crater, or feed this
special someone to fishes.”

“I said those were
just theories. Besides that, as for the motive for stealing the eyeballs part,
I’m assuming you’re as clueless as the rest of the world.”

“Clueless? Who?
Me?” He said with a fake shock. “On the contrary, my head’s full of possible
reasons for the killer’s behavior. For example, the eyeballs might have been
carrying some critical information to ID the killer, or as they say the eye is
the window to the soul, and the killer had taken them in an attempt to get
their souls so that the killer can feel closer, more intimate to the victims. I
guess I can hear them at BAU seriously discussing those staffs. It totally
lacks originality but it’s the standard theory to be considered first thing in
behavioral analysis.”

I recalled that Archangel
himself once used to be an FBI agent. He started a career with the feds in the
department of art crimes, and his area of expertise had expanded into homicide
as well. It was easy to imagine him working with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. The
hard to imagine part was a giant transvestite working as a feds agent. I didn’t
know when he started to wear women’s attire, but so far, I’d only known him as
a giant transvestite. If he ever appears in front of me clad in a men’s suit
that screams “serious business,” I might burst out laughing.

Archangel continued.
“The problem is, there’re too many possible explanations for the reason the
killer poked the eyeballs out of the victims. Maybe it’s the killer’s special ritual
to avoid getting caught. For instance, assuming there was no eyewitness save
for the victim, taking the eyeballs out of the corpses might have worked just
fine for that purpose, perhaps it gave the killer a sense of security. People,
whether labeled
normal
or
abnormal,
often have peculiar
obsessions. So maybe taking the eyeballs out of the victims might be something
equivalent of a sex for the killer. And here’s another one, maybe the killer’s
purpose is just to collect the eyeballs. Or maybe, the killer has taken
eyeballs for interior decoration of the house. Basically, nothing is
impossible.”

Imagining the
killer showing off eyeballs in a gold fish bowl, I shivered. “The last speculation
was the sickest of all.”

“Not as bad as the
possibility of the killer eating the eyeballs out of the victims.”

“Excuse me?” I
gasped, “Eating the eyeballs? Like a cannibal? That’s…outrageous. You can’t be
serious.”

“What’s wrong with
eating the eyeballs? I’ve met a Japanese guy who regularly eats eyeballs out of
tuna and red snappers. You can’t possibly criticize the culinary culture of other
people’s heritage especially when you share the same heritage.”

“Eating human
eyeballs is a completely different story!” I protested. “You’re just making fun
of me with a theory that’s too-grossy-to-be-true.”

For someone with
an angel in his name, Michael Archangel often came up with demonic ideas,
totally going the opposite direction from what his surname implied. According
to him, when his ancestor Archmepapadopoulas from Greece came to Ellis Island
back in 1899, the officer at immigrant inspection station told him “You’re an
Archangel from now on,” and issued a new passport with Archangel written as the
surname and that was it.

This officer
should have been called Mr. Cynic, I guess.

“Okay, so it’s
true that sometimes you’re so funny to try a prank or two. But the thing is,
cannibals do exist. Remember Rudy Eugene, Miami Cannibal? Though it turned out
he had just bit off the poor man’s face rather than eating the victim.” He
said, munching on a piece of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

“How can you eat cookies
while talking about cannibalism?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the
answer.

“Practice. You get
used to seeing corpses, then you’ll be eating while thinking, visualizing, and talking
about cadavers.”

“I don’t think I’d
ever get used to seeing murdered corpses.” I said bitterly.

“Lucky you,”
Archangel shrugged. “You can shed off extra pounds without starving yourself.”
Then he gave me the onceover. “Maybe in your case, that’s not working.”

“Excuse me?” I
demanded. “Did you just say I’m fat?”

“Well, I didn’t
say the
f
-word, you know.” He said, suddenly showing a very keen
interest in wood grain of the desk.

I sighed, feeling
a bit inclined to shake him hard until the teeth fell off. “Anyway, I really
hope the killer gets caught ASAP. It’s not right for someone who kills and
takes eyeballs from other people to walk free.”

“I know.” Then he squinted
at the TV screen. “Who’s he?”

A cute blonde guy
was performing one of his hit songs with the piano.  

“That’s Yves, he’s
a singer, song writer, and multi-instrumental player. Right now he’s one of the
most emerging new stars in the pop music scene.” I said.

“He’s weird,” he
said, furrowing.

“You said the same
thing about Justin Bieber before.”

“No. I said Justin
Bieber is a stupid brat and a pothead, weird is not the word I used.”

“I don’t see much
difference. You’re just dissing them both.”

Ignoring my
remark, he muttered. “Yves sounds and looks very unstable. I think he has some
serious problem within himself.”

Then the phone
rang. It was Henderson requesting Archangel to come to a new crime scene where a
new body minus the eyeballs was discovered.

When I looked into her eyes, I
felt her intense gaze on me.

“I hope you
love it here,” I whispered.

Honey, I love
you—she whispered back. She didn’t make a sound but I knew she said so.

“Are you tired?”
I asked her. She didn’t say anything, but the silence was telling more than
words.

Again, I stared
at her. She looked me back straight. As if she was enjoying a game.

Still, there
was something more than just a game.

There was…acceptance.

No need to talk
so fast. No need to pretend my confidence. Not anymore… 

I felt hot
tears rolling my face. I also sensed her smiling gently, with an assurance.

I started to
smile and broke into a laughter.

On the TV, they
were airing the latest news.

The reporter
was talking fast. Lots of words with little meanings. It was a complete waste
of time.

I reached for the
TV remote to flip it off. Then I froze.

“Darling, how
about that woman?”

She said
nothing.

But I knew she
wanted to meet her.

Badly.

But how?—I
wondered. Then I observed her carefully.

The woman in
the screen was insecure. Every move of her was telling it.

I saluted my
champagne glass.

In the glass
was clear, golden liquid.

Delicate
bubbles were dancing around the two human eyeballs soaking in the liquid.

I knew one
thing—I was going to get her.

Julia Stewart,
MD, the woman on TV positively shared major physical features with Dragon Lady.

Russel Street was a typical good
neighborhood in northern Virginia. Quiet streets lined with large to moderate
size houses, with each house accentuated with charming exterior and manicured
lawn. If it was not for the yellow crime scene tape that said ‘CRIME SCENE DO
NOT CROSS’ wrapped around a dollhouse-like structure like a sick joke, it would
have appeared nice. Picturesque, even.

Due to the
relative closeness to the D.C. metro area and/or the growing attention to
Eyeball
Snatcher
cases, media-type people were already flocking to the area. Cameras,
satellite trucks and everything were gathering on the sidewalk, as if they were
awaiting for an action or something.

It was the place that
the latest case had just occurred. In addition to TV networks, various
journalists including those from newspaper, magazines and even blogs were
there.

I parked Archangel’s
Machomobile
(my secret nickname for the black Chevy Camaro) at the
closest possible place to the house, slapped the FBI parking permit on the back
of the front glass, and hurried after my employer who was walking fast with
long strides in front of the cameras and reporters.

I felt a little
macho, too. Coming out of the Machomobile has that effect on me. I’ve got my
own set of wheels but my Cadillac came in a loud metallic purple with gold hues
and whenever I came out of the purple car, it made me feel like a pimp, or a
gangsta. Then again, the Pimp car was a freebie, it was functioning, and scared
away other cars at the mall’s parking lot, I couldn’t complain.

The sun was
starting to sink under the horizon. It was a beautiful spring evening. Maybe too
beautiful for a horrible murder to take place.

Amid the buzz, I
caught a couple of men engaged in a heated discussion about seeing some woman.

“If you’re so
bloody sure it’s her, why don’t you go ask?”

“Oh yes. I will.”

I heard the
exchange but I wasn’t listening carefully.

As I walked past,
a voice called me from behind. “Hey, is that you, Kelly?”

For once, I
stopped breathing. Cold sweat trickled down from the back of my neck all the
way down to the nucleus of the earth. Or hell. I was vaguely familiar with that
voice. And that British accent. Not to mention Americans usually don’t say
‘bloody’ for emphasis purposes. I should have just ignored and kept on walking,
but by reflex, I looked back, and consequently, my eyes got blinded by camera
flash.

—
Hey Kelly, is
that true that Warren the big swindler did a double-penetration with you and
his new girl on finalizing the divorce?

In my head, the
paparazzo’s voice replayed over and over. Baz was his name, now I remembered. Clearly.

I was reliving the
exact moment that this dynamite of hate-Kelly campaign got ignited. It was in
my post-divorce days. The divorce itself was a real quickie but before the ink on
the divorce paper dried, Warren got arrested. The scandal that erupted following
his arrest was huge and messy. After all, it had turned out that Warren
Bernadoff Estevez—the obscenely successful financial tycoon, the man referred
to as the King of the City—in truth, had never been a legitimate businessman.
The supposedly successful business he’d been running for decades was nothing
but a massive Ponzi-scheme which, indeed, was the biggest Ponzi-scheme in
British history. The money he’d collected from investors were thoroughly used
to support the glamorous, extravagant, jet-setting, partying, super-rich
lifestyle he’d fully indulged for a long, long time. Though no ordinary,
hardworking people were victimized in this bad case of fraud on the account the
minimum amount to participate in his fund required a lot of money, public
opinion, especially that coming from the media was pretty harsh. Warren was
well-connected and had many friends in the media industry, so the majority of
big fishes in the industry had smartly entrusted their money to his
Ponzi-scheme, anticipating to boost up their already humongous net worth. When
those media big fishes realized they’d just kissed their millions goodbye, they
were not thrilled. At all. What had ultimately ticked them off was that Kelly
the ex-wife of the big swindler, had cunningly managed to walk without even a
slap on the wrist.

For them, I was just
an accessory to my ex’s crime and a ‘bloody’ lucky slut who’d dodged criminal
charges by getting a divorce before things got ugly. Another gold digging third
wife who married a man probably older than her own father—that’s what they
labeled me. They turned blind eye to the fact that first, I had nothing to do
with my ex’s business; second, I had fully cooperated with prosecutors; and third,
I was actually the dump-
ee
in the divorce, not the dump-
er
.

It had only enraged
them even more when they realized that they wouldn’t be able to recover their
losses by suing me. I had a modest divorce settlement but by the time they
thought about lawsuits, I had already donated the entire divorce settlement to
a research fund to find a cure for osteogenesis imperfecta. And another
research fund for achondroplasia. It felt wonderfully good to donate money to
congenital diseases with hard-to-pronounce names. Then so-called victims
started making threats about ruining my life and everything, but I’d just got a
new phone number and closed all of my SNS and email accounts. My lawyer (or the
lawyer Mom hired for me) was adamant that I keep low profiles. So she put me in
an exile in Gibraltar. As instructed, I was keeping low profiles in a safe
house, and that’s when a couple of paparazzi just popped up in front of my
doorstep, from out of nowhere. Just like unpleasant version of genies.

“Hey Kelly, is
that true that Warren the big swindler did a double-penetration with you and
his new girl on finalizing the divorce?”

“Of course, it’s
true,”
before I could react to Baz the reporter’s rude question, Dick the
cameraman chimed in.
“You know what? They must’ve done it to celebrate her
coming back as Kelly
Kinky
back from Kelly Estevez. Seriously, have you
ever met a woman named Kinky who’s not into kinky sex?”

That was the
moment something went
pop!
In my head. I didn’t like the fact that my
appointed safe house was not-so-safe anymore, and I was really sick of this
you-are-Kinki-which-makes-you-kinky joke. Since the Day One in grade school,
I’ve heard this Kelly
Kinky
joke gazillion times! I thought my head had
rotated 360 degrees. The rest was a history. I made a rapid-fire response laced
with colorful expletives that were capable of making a gangsta cry like a
virgin with embarrassment. Then I went back inside the not-so-safe-anymore
house. I could have stayed inside, but I went out to reencounter the offending
paparazzi. And I breathed fire.

Yes, you heard me
right. I breathed fire, as in literally. Just like Godzilla does to the city of
Tokyo all the time. It was the first time I’d ever breathed fire, but I’d seen
one of former faux-dads breathe fire (he’s an illusionist) and believe me, I so
wanted to make my point. I used vodka and some lit candles. When I exhaled
fire, it felt amazingly hot as if having a temporal visit to hell. I wasn’t
aware of the third paparazzo who captured everything in video. Which, was aired
on TV. Over and over.

My name was
engraved as Kelly the Bitch in all Britons’ memory. This hate-Kelly campaign
got really popular. Magazines, newspaper featuring photos of me taken from
unflattering angles totally sold out. And on TV, they got killer ratings when
they did shows caricaturizing a potty-mouthed woman breathing fire. Not only
did the big boys in media industry had managed to cover their losses by hating
me, they ended up with even bigger profits. Talk about an irony. The marginally
good part about this fiasco was that I got the first post-divorce gig. During
this fiasco, this American comic heavy metal band called Iron Dragon was
visiting London, watched the video featuring yours truly breathing fire. They
recruited me as Lady Dragon the fire breather to accompany
Feel the Heat
world tour.

“—Bloody hell! I
said I was right!”

Before I could
recover from the shock, Baz shrieked happily. “It’s Kelly the Bitch. The
poisonous, vicious, kinky, fire-breathing bitch. Hey Dickie, I told ya I knew
it! We ain’t over with the Bitch!”

Hooting and
pumping the fists, they did a high-five.

I was still
standing there frozen, stunned, and motionless. In my mind, I was shooting at those
British paparazzi with an automatic firearm until those SOBs resembled the
Swiss cheese from
Tom & Jerry
cartoons. Albeit I didn’t even own a
handgun, I could have purchased something at a Walmart on the way. I knew it
was not ladylike, nice, or even legal to shoot at people just because you
loathed them, but I hated them. I hated them so bad. They were the ones who
started that huge hate-Kelly campaign! Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve
got to do. Especially, when they were the root of all evil.

Not knowing my
contemplation, Baz flashed his chipped, yellowy teeth. “So how have you been,
Kelly? What are ya doing here? Swindling out of the people as you used to do with
Warren, now in the U.S.? Should we warn the Americans about you?” He peppered
me with a series of mean questions—just like he did on that day in Gibraltar. “Or
better yet, now you’ve switched to taking eyeballs out of innocent people?”

“We’re goddamn
lucky!” Dick howled while shooting photos of me without giving a second’s rest.
“Not only do we get to see a new
Eyeball Snatcher
case, but also we got
to take pics of Kelly the Bitch! Think about the headline – ‘Kelly the Bitch spotted
on at a crime scene! Does she kill too?!’ Now it’s even better than confirming
PM’s affair with a twenty-something model turned actress. God bless our PM for
comin’ to the US!”

I bit my lip. I
didn’t bother to cover my face with my hands. I was aware that’d only enhance
the photo in the worst possible way, giving an impression that I was actually humiliated.
It was like a total déjà vu. The worst part of my personal history was recurring
and revisiting me. It was like seeing a really bad movie that’s scored six
Razzies coming back with an even worse sequel.

But deep in my
heart, I knew this day was coming, and there really was nothing I could do. Michael
Archangel was right. I was a socialite dropout. It was only a mere luck that I’d
never had an encounter with British paparazzi in the U.S. so far. I was so used
to be my current mediocre, invisible status as an assistant to a private
detective. Michael Archangel was famous for his brilliance, crime-solving
skills and wackiness, but he was the one who gets all the attention. Not me. I
was just a person in the background, who would be photoshopped out by editorial
people. Here in the U.S., I was practically no one. And I really loved my anonymity.
 

In my current
world, the fiasco back in the UK was just a bad dream, but now it seemed like I
was whooping wrong. They hadn’t forgotten about me, or forgiven me. Still yet, meeting
those paparazzi from hell wasn’t something I had expected. Ever again. Not to
mention being reminded that Bitch-who-used-to-be-married-to-the-Big-Swindler-Warren
catch copy got stuck on me like Elmer’s permanent glue was not the happiest prospectus
of my life. Headlines of tomorrow’s trashy morning papers in the UK flashed in
my head, with photos of me spread all over and captions that implied as if I
was the one responsible for the gruesome murders.

I closed my eyes, blinked,
took a deep breath, and tried to count three positive things about this event
in a vain attempt to cheer myself up. One; at least, I didn’t live in the UK anymore
so I wouldn’t be bothered with mean headlines unless I waste a moment to search
the garbage on the web, two; I was still famous and a sort of popular among
them, and three; well…what about the third positive thing…?

BASH!

Alright, add that
the camera suddenly got busted and shattered to tatters in front of my eyes, to
the reason#3 to stay positive.

“Bloody fuck!”

“Hey, what the
fuck do you think you just did?” yelled two mean men from the UK.

“Chill, I’ve just
saved your lives.” Archangel, who had just shattered the camera into bits and pieces
with a reverse roundhouse kick, casually chimed in. 

“On that camera, you
had a black widow spider crawling about. It’s one of the deadliest spiders of
the world, and if you get bitten by that, it could have caused serious
consequences such as an acute abdominal and back pain, muscle cramps, nausea,
vomiting, difficulty breathing, high blood pressure, restlessness, and death.”

British paparazzi exchanged
glances.

“You’re trying to
con me, right?” said Dick the photographer.

“You’ll be sorry
if you’re bullshitting on us.” With narrowed eyes, Baz said. “Just because we
happen to be English gentlemen doesn’t mean you can take an advantage of us.”

Archangel bent
down, picked up a fragment of the shattered camera using a handkerchief. “By
the way, the spider has highly potent venom which causes helluva ulcers to the
skin in case you have physical contacts. Wanna try?”

As he extended his
hand holding the fragment to the British paparazzi, they literally jumped back.
“Hell no!”

“By the way, you
are
bloody
lucky that I’m not suing your little
arses
out,” dropping
the camera fragment, Archangel continued in a low and husky voice.

“Look at this,” he
kicked the left leg in front, exhibiting the slightly chipped sole of the Jimmy
Choo platform to their eyes. “Your camera had caused a tremendous damage to my
shoe, this baby had cost a fortune. Think about the sacrifice I’ve just made
for the two of you! I’ll send the shoe-repair bill to your office in London,
cheers
!”