Lucky Thirteen (2 page)

“Nothin’.”

Feeling that curious melancholy she had been experiencing, Larkin remarked, “Hmmm. Well, if you use that term in my room once more toward anybody, you
will
become very afraid of the six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound, sexually-starved monster who will be your bunkmate in lockup. Until then, perhaps, you should be afraid of me.”

The students stifled snickers
and looked between the two. She glared at them, prompting silence.

Dupree burst out laughing
. “You a scrawny little white woman. You come in here tryin’ to change somethin’ you don’t know nothin’ about. You know what these slits in my eyebrow mean?” He pointed to two shaved spaces in his eyebrow. “Maybe you should be afraid of me.”

Larkin
did know much of the gang liturgy and symbolism. She had learned quickly during her first year in the classroom. She had also learned not to show fear to these kids, so, although shivering inside, she calmly replied, “Mr. Parks, it appears you do
not
know who has the power in this room. Perhaps, you should leave us.” She moved toward the intercom.

Dupree jumped up from his desk and shouted, “Try it, bitch!”

Larkin raised an eyebrow and pushed the button. At the same moment, the literature book from beneath Dupree’s desk hit her in the face. Blood spread over her eye and down her cheek. The office responded to her call and heard screams from the three girls in the class. Within minutes, security came into the room to twelve voices telling them what had happened. One of the guards removed Dupree with an iron grip on his arm while the other escorted Larkin and the rest of the class to the office where the assistant principal took her to Catholic Charity Hospital for stitches to her right eyebrow.

At her insistence, Mr. Manning, the assistant principal, left her in the capable hands of Dr. Bixby
. Larkin was surprised she was seen so quickly. The doctor put five stitches in her eyebrow and told her to go home after writing a prescription for Lorcet. Larkin laughed. “Dr. Bixby, this has been one
bad
day, but a few stitches won’t keep me from my students. Besides, my car is at the school. I’ll take a cab back. Thank you for your nice work.”

Larkin
could not believe her luck for the day was changing when she found a cab at the entrance to the ER. Sliding into the back seat, “St. Ignatius,” she said.

A soft, cultured
, masculine voice said, “Seatbelt.”

Larkin smiled that her cab driver would worry about her safety
. After the day she’d had, it made her feel good. She glanced into the rear view mirror and was startled by the bluest eyes she had ever seen looking at her. She clicked the seatbelt and the driver cranked the car. She leaned back on the seat and smelled a sweet odor on the cushion. Sleep came a moment later.

♣♣♣

Larkin jerked her wrist. The voice, the voice from the cab, said again, “Stop. You’ll hurt yourself. I’ll be back.”

Blue eyes! Why am I thinking about his eyes?
She jerked her wrist again.

“Please stop. Relax. I’ll be back.”

2

A Real Pain

D
etectiv
e
Raiford Reynolds groaned, rubbed his temples, opened his desk drawer, and snatched his prescription for Amidrine. “Damn it! I don’t wanna take this. I can’t afford to go to sleep right now. This shit always knocks me out.”

As keyed up as he was, he half expected a voice to answer him
. In the last two hours, he had already taken four Advil, three aspirin, and three extra-strength Tylenol. Nothing was left but to take the Amidrine, even if it meant passing out for a few hours. The last time his head had hurt this much had been when he pulled an all-nighter studying for his last final at Louisiana State University. He had partied far too much with his fraternity brothers at Delta Tau Delta to study in a reasonable fashion. “I’m surprised I graduated,” he grunted.
No, this headache is worse, but I brought both of them on myself from lack of sleep and pushing my body further than it needs to be pushed.

These damned headaches
had prevented him from playing football as much as he liked the sport and had wanted to play. He had managed baseball and golf. His body took less pounding, and his doctor would only release him to play non-contact sports in school. A stabbing ache like an ice pick through his temple shot from one side of his head to the other. The pain was becoming unbearable; the Amidrine, inevitable.

But what of
my ridiculous headache?
Detective Reynolds was certain his migraine, even if it was the worst one he had experienced during his three years as a detective, was nothing compared to the agony the twelve women in the pictures before him must have endured. Besides, he would be feeling a different kind of hurt, unemployment, if he didn’t solve this case, and soon. The chief had personally said, “Ray, you’re the best detective I have. This is an election year. Get this mess solved! I don’t need this, and neither do you.”

The chief’s declaration had come after the seventh body
was discovered. Now, there were twelve.
Oh, yes, Chief Gerard is feeling the sting of an election-year nightmare—a serial killer. The mayor is on the chief’s back. And, oh, yes, misery loves company. The chief definitely intimated that if he’s out, I am, too.

But what kind of pain
is that? It’s not real suffering.
Looking at the pictures again, a wave of nausea swept over him. He couldn’t be sure whether the nausea was caused by the persistent migraine or the crime scene photos, but he determined to get his headache under control. He had no choice. He had to take the Amidrine.

Ray looked at the drink machine in the hallway
.
Maybe if I take the damned pill with a Red Bull, I can get a couple of more hours before I zonk.

He stood and stretched to his full six-foot height
. He clutched the prescription bottle and chuckled as another voice came to his memory. Ray could hear his mother, “Raiford Michael Reynolds, stand up and stop slouching! You’ll get a hump in your back. We might be Catholic, but I don’t want you to be known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One of your ancestors, also called Raiford, was a knight who fought in the Crusades. Straighten that spine and show pride in the person you are.”

Ray knew he always slouched when he was stressed
.
What would Mom say if she could see me now? This case is more than a hunch in my back. It’s enough to bend me double, maybe break my back. So what if my namesake was Sir Raiford Reynolds? It’s not really my blood anyway. After all, I’m adopted. I’ve always known I was born in the charity ward of Catholic Charity Hospital. My birth mother was a street-walking drug addict who went by the name of Audrey—real or not, I don’t know, nor do I really care. I’ve been blessed to have been adopted by Albert and Dorothy Reynolds. They’ve given me a good life.

He
looked down at his desk again and puffed out a remorseful sigh as the top picture, the second victim, burned into his brain, and a throb like a hot bullet shot through his head. He slammed his chair into his desk, stomped to the drink machine, got a Red Bull, and popped two Amidrine into his mouth, washing them down with the entire Red Bull without a breath. He tossed the can into the wastebasket and made a stop in the restroom.

Ray washed his face and wet down his short soot
-black hair. He leaned on the lavatory and gasped when he saw himself in the mirror. He touched strands of gray near his temple. Although somewhat thin at hundred eight-five pounds, he was by no means skinny, but his face looked gaunt. He had an athlete’s body and worked to preserve it three or four days a week at the gym, but visits lately had been few and far between.
A good workout would go a long way toward relieving this damned headache
. His two-day stubble made him look older than his thirty years. The blood-shot whites of his eyes and dark circles beneath his lower eyelids made his startlingly sapphire-blue irises look even bluer and more outstanding against his rather fair complexion and black hair. He noticed a coffee stain on his white button-down shirt. Ray grunted. “No, Mom wouldn’t holler at me. She’d probably slap me.”
Then, again, I can’t remember having ever been slapped.

He shook his wet hair like a dog and returned to the deserted office area
. He turned the crime scene photos face down and whispered, “I can’t look at you deceased right now.” He then picked up the photos of the twelve dead women from when they were still alive. “Maybe living,” he muttered. The detective put them in order of their deaths and stared at them as if hoping one of them would speak to him.

He
reviewed in his mind:
Twelve women are dead in less than a year. The M.O. is the same. All had their throats slit. Almost all the blood was drained from their bodies. They were all obviously bound as evidenced from the bruising on their wrists. There was a different emblem painted over each ones’ shaved pubic area, but there was no sexual assault. Moreover, none appeared to have been abused except for having been tied up. All were placed in the cemetery in the normal position a dead body would be laid in a coffin, and they were all wearing what could have been a white wedding dress. On the other hand, they have absolutely nothing in common.

Serial killers usually pick a type, but
my victims range from a fifty-five-year-old white nun to a sixteen-year-old black high school student, with various ages and races in between. There’s no socioeconomic attachment either. Nothing makes sense.

Ray glanced at the white board against the wall where he had recorded vital information on each victim and their last known movements and whereabouts. He
grabbed the badly dog-eared chart he had made and reviewed it. He had numbered the women in order and written the most important information: name, race, age, physical description, date missing and date of death, and the blasted symbols. He grunted as he looked at his chicken scratch. “Maybe it’s the dates. Some are holidays. But what are the others?”

♣♣♣

♣♣♣

“Come on!” He slammed the chart onto his desk. “Gimme a break! Speak to me!” he screamed.

Ray heard
the response he had been expecting earlier. He looked up to see Special Agent Christine Milovich, the singular, but
only
, help the FBI had sent when Ray requested assistance at Easter. Chris was pretty and athletically built. Ray knew she never lacked male companionship for several of the patrolmen had asked her out since she had been there. She was almost as tall as Ray and wore her dishwater blonde hair short. Her soft brown eyes stared with rebuke at Ray now. She wore black slacks, a cream-colored lightweight cashmere sweater and flat black suede Earth shoes. She crossed her arms, pursed her lips, and tapped her foot. “Ray, have you been here all night again?”

“Yes,” he replied, unaffected by his temporary partner’s tone or demeanor.

Agent Milovich snatched the pictures from Ray’s desk. “Go! Now!” she commanded. “If you make yourself sick, you’ll be of no use to anybody. I can see by the expression on your face you have another migraine. You look like shit! Get some rest, and for God’s sake, shower and shave. Do that for me. I have to smell you.”

Ray rubbed
his head again and spoke softly. “Chris, I can’t have another body turn up.” He picked up the picture of the nun as it escaped her hands. “I knew her personally. Sister Mary Michael taught Sunday school when I was a boy. Who would wanna hurt this woman? Or any of them? It’s just that this does make it more personal, and I don’t have a clue.” He finished with despair in his voice. He ran his fingers through his hair and puffed out his exasperation in one long breath.

Christine softened her tone
. “Ray, get some sleep. We’ll get this bastard. I promise. But right now, you need to rest.”

“I know,” he submitted
. “I’ll go to the locker room and sleep a while. And I promise to shower and shave before I come back.”

She shooed him on with a little hand motion
. Ray went to the back of the facility where each police officer had a locker. Several cots stood for use during disaster times. They had been moved in after Hurricane Katrina. He plunked onto the nearest one and instantly fell asleep.

A
strange, disconcerting dream floated into his subconscious as often happened. He dreamed about himself, or thought it was himself. Although the person looked just like Ray, it was someone
entirely
different.

♣♣♣

Ray woke to the gentle shaking of Christine Milovich and her voice insisting, “Wake up.”

He opened his eyes slowly and squinted against the harsh glare of the overhead florescent lights. His headache lingered. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked, a little dazed.

“Only a couple of hours,”
his partner replied. “I’m sorry to wake you, but another woman has disappeared.”

“Fuck!” Ray rubbed his forehead and neck
. “Just shoot me and put me out of my misery. This is real pain, Chris, a real pain.”