The Soulless IX (433 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 10 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Anthony Locascio (View user info) at 2005-06-02 00:32:36 EDT
Luis vomited when the stench hit him. Adam laughed. "Ah ah ah, away from the tape, my friend," He cackled to himself as Luis moved away to lean on the car, his guts contracting in disgust and disgorging whatever breakfast he had thrown down in the early morning hours. Adam had been a detective long enough to know that a murder scene like the one he was seeing now was a rare thing. He hummed the lyrics to a song he'd secreted somewhere in that part of the brain that was useful for remembering things of no value. "Miles of yellow tape....silhouetted chalk lines...."
Four black and whites had parked laterally in the street, blocking off the road and hiding some of the carnage. The Crime Scene Unit van was wedged along one side, its rear doors open. A steady flurry of camera flashes reflected off the wet pavement, clashing with the strobe of the red and blue cruiser lights. Adam strolled over as Luis wretched.
"Lloyd! LLOYD!" he shouted. The CSU team lead's head poked up from the bustle. Adam flashed the tin at the two uniforms and made his way under the tape. Lloyd Updike met him half way, a surgical mask covering his face.
"You don't usually wear one of those," Adam chuckled. "Must be bad."
"Bad don't tell the half of it. Couldn't have been more than an hour ago from the few witnesses we've had. Hard to get a basal body temperature read to verify that,"
"Why?"
"You'll see, and when you do, you'll wish you hadn't. Deceased name's Ronald Chesterfield."
Adam almost broke out laughing again. "Ron 'the John'? You've got to be kidding! Somebody offed him?"
"You can't possibly know this guy."
"Damn sure do, he was a CI for some of the narcs, in and out of the station like clockwork every two weeks. "
"This poor guy was an informant?"
Adam nodded. "Lawrence, from narco used to pick him up every, what? Week and a half, two weeks. You could set a watch by it. He'd come in for possession, a dime bag here, a rock there. He'd give up some low level dealer, be back on the street and get a coupla free doughnuts for his trouble. Lawrence had something like fifty busts in the black column thanks to him."
Lloyd glanced back over his shoulder. The look around his rheumy, aging eyes was one of a man who was getting tired of mornings beginning with murder. "Might have something to do with ending up like this?"
Adam shrugged. "Nobody really got sent up for a long time. Ronnie never broke anybody but some punk street level dealers. It was a numbers game, more busts, more sheets, more, more, more. Show me what we're looking at,"
Lloyd gestured and Adam followed around the front of the police cruiser. Some of the assistant CSU were putting up canvas fencing to obscure the crime scene. As the body came into view, he could see why.
One of his first cases years ago had been at the scene of an industrial accident. A baling hook on a dockside loading crane had snagged a man's lower belly and torn him open. He'd been just another uniform then, just another grunt drawing a shit salary and thinking his badge made him bulletproof. His partner at the time, a guy named Hastings who had transferred out years ago, had described what had happened to the unfortunate fellow as being "unzipped". A gleaming knot of viscera and intestines had tumbled out of his abdomen, hanging out of his gut between his legs like an obscene ball of organic twine. Someone had done the same thing to Ronnie, who's head was tilted back to stare up at the graying sky with eyes glazed by death. He hadn't noticed it at first, but now the stench hit him like a sledgehammer, a mixture of blood, bile, and shit. He cleared his throat and realized why Luis had vomited. Suddenly, he was conscious of the last thing he'd eaten creeping its way back up his esophagus.
"Good God," was all he could say. "Any idea on the weapon?"
"Nearly surgically sharp. A curved blade of some kind, maybe three to four inches, probably a martial-arts style knife. One cut, starting just above the pubic bone and ending just below the sternum."
Adam glanced at the body and found he couldn't look too long. "Gutted. Didn't think something like that would kill you right away."
Lloyd pointed. "It didn't." Adam's eyes followed Lloyd's finger to the dark trail of fluid that coated the pavement for several meters leading up to where the mutilated corpse lay. "Witnesses say that the guy stabbed him on the corner of that block, then kept walking with him as he staggered away. We found stomach acid on the pavement, so it looks like they're not mistaken."
"Walked with the guy he'd just stabbed?" Adam's eyes widened. Lloyd nodded, then shook his head. "This guy's a real gem. Ronnie pissed somebody off. Can't believe he lasted this long," He glanced down at the dead man's wide-open eyes. Insects buzzed and settled on them and amongst his glistening insides. He turned away, feeling the burn of bile at the base of his esophagus. "Where are these witnesses?"
Lloyd waved at the corner where several uniforms were standing next to a blanket-wrapped woman. He tried to stroll over as casually as he could, but inside he was thrilled to be away from the eviscerated body. The tear-streaked woman was being soothed as best as possible by the patrolmen, fresh-faced kids barely out of the academy from the looks of them. Adam flashed his shield and they moved respectfully aside. He sat down on the pavement next to her.
"Hello, Greta," he said, not looking at her, not looking away. She looked at him without recognition. "I know you don't remember me. You and Ronnie had a house together."
"That a long time ago," she said, barely audible. "You one o' dem guys Ronnie did business wit?"
"You could say that. Ronnie turned over a few guys to me over the years, I took care of him, kept him out of jail. How's Roland? Staying out of trouble?"
She dipped her head in to her arms, her dreadlocks covering her face. "He doin' twelve years for armed robbery. What the fuck you want with me, cop? You may know me, but that don't matter to me,"
Adam reached into his jacket and took out his cigarettes, a cheap knock-off brand that tasted like trash. He poked the package at her in an obscene parody of courtesy. Her shaking hand reached over to take one, and Adam saw the telltale lines on her arm of a person who had long ago graduated from something as innocuous as pot and moved onto heavy-duty injectables. He flicked the lighter and held it for her a few moments. The heat from the smoke was barely noticeable in the rapidly heating morning air. He breathed in a deeply, spraying a cloud out into the air. He watched her smoke as well. He had noticed something about junkies when they smoked. - they never blew the smoke out the way a long-time smoker would. Instead, it dribbled and sputtered out of their mouths and noses, as though they were trying to extract whatever they could from humble tobacco. He had no doubt that when Greta finally pitched the cigarette, it would be smoked down to the filter.
"Yes, I know. Never been a help to you, wasn't really all that much help to Ron when I knew him. But that's all over now. Now you have to help me. Tell me who this guy you saw was."
She looked at him with a skeptical air. Adam simply drew more smoke. "Didn't get too good a look at him," she said, pretending to turn her attention back to her cigarette.
Adam nodded. "I see. That little tidbit you spilled to the blues, that was out of shock. Now you're thinking more clearly, maybe worried about how you were involved. Maybe worried about this guy coming after you. What happened, Greta? Ronnie try to jack somebody? Somebody from the neighborhood get pissed at him for passing some weak weed? "
"Don't know nothin' bout that," she snapped. "I didn't see him too good,"
"Greta, I believe what you said to those officers. That guy put his arm around Ronnie after he stabbed him. He walked with Ronnie until he dropped. He enjoyed what he did, Greta. He enjoyed killing your husband, or your partner, or whatever the fuck you want to call him. He liked it and he'll almost certainly do it again. Where are you, Greata? Are you at that point yet, where you don't give a shit about the world to the point that you don't care if he kills somebody else?"
"You goddamn right," she snarled. "Might do you good to have to pick up a few bodies, might show somebody in this city how useless you is."
"I take it you're not going to cooperate?"
"No. Fuck y'all."
Adam nodded. "I thought as much. Okay," He stood up.
"You gonna arrest me now? Obstruction of justice maybe? Or maybe disorderly conduct?" It was a challenge more than a question. Adam laughed.
"Arrest you? Nah. I have enough junkies cluttering up my jail without adding you to the mix. What I'm going to do now is get on the phone and call the Department of Corrections. I'm going to find what pen your boy is in. Then I'm going to tell the commanding officer there that we have information Roland is planning a hit on somebody. He'll go down into solitary. They won't find anything, so he'll stay down there until they do. You probably visit him regularly, don't you?" She looked up at him with eyes that threw hate out in a vicious deluge. "You don't have to answer. I know you do. Well there won't be any visits while he's down there. The food is shit, because most of the guys who get sent down there are there for knifing one of the officers. You spend twenty-three hours a day in that cell. No visitors. Except for me. I'll be sure to drop by, and I'll be sure to let him know why he's down there - because you won't give up the guy that killed his father. How about that, mom? Think he'll love you after that? Think you'll be welcome when he comes out of there as pale as a piece of boiled chicken?"
"You bastard," was all she said. Adam sat next to her again on the pavement and flicked open his notebook.
"Yes, yes. You, Ron, Roland, all of you never seem to get it. You go along, you get along. You don't, you get stomped. It's a lesson your type never seem to learn. Now, what did this guy look like?"
She started to talk. He started to write.
User Reviews
Submitted by BlazinBull (user info) at 2008-01-31 10:16:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DesolateMisanthrope (user info) at 2007-03-15 12:30:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Viper_04 (user info) at 2005-11-11 08:37:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
too much in one night.....must sleeeeeeeep!
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-11-09 11:39:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-07-06 19:14:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice, I really liked the dialogue. Adam's character is coming through nicely. Also, the jargon adds a lot to the story.
Well done.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-06-08 08:51:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Loved It
Submitted by Speed2oo1 (user info) at 2005-06-02 13:51:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome
Submitted by iradney (user info) at 2005-06-02 04:19:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
chilling
Submitted by transhuman (user info) at 2005-06-02 02:27:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I enjoyed that.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-06-02 00:42:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweetness.