The Monster Within (3 page)

“So it’s a suicide,” I say to Owens. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t think it’s a suicide, King.” Owens sounds as serious as a heart attack. I notice that we’re not alone in the room. He’s speaking to me like he’s trying to convince me that killing Caesar is a good idea in a room full of uniforms. I look around at all the others. Some of them have the same stupid, cheap ass haircut that so many of the other detectives have, but some of these uniforms are old school. Some of them have the look that they came up in this city. They were born into the war and they’re committed. This isn’t a career for many of them, it’s part of the fight to take back their city.

“Show him the files,” another uniform says. I look at the black man who spoke. He looks like he could bench press Owens and me together. He folds his beefy arms over his swollen chest and looks at me with a doubtful look.

“What files?” I ask.

“Some of us are starting to put the pieces together,” Owens says with an intense, serious look in his eyes that makes me feel more and more uncomfortable with every passing second. “Some of the boys and I have started noticing that the suicides in the city aren’t making a whole lot of sense. There’s too many of them, too violent, too dramatic.”

“So what?” I raise an eyebrow. He doesn’t need to answer the question. I’m already leagues ahead of him. I’ve heard the story a thousand times before. “You think someone’s following depressed people and putting them out of their misery?”

It’s hot outside. The heat has a way of getting to people, a way to make them more irritable, more violent when it comes to stupid little stuff. I caught more cases where street trash shot someone because they looked at him wrong or said his hat was stupid. They’re all about killing each other when they get in each other’s faces. It’s stupidity and violence all brought on because the heat gets to them. I understand that. I can comprehend it. Maybe the heat also makes people more interested in killing themselves? I’m willing to accept that over the idea that there is a serial killer out there looking to put depressed people out of their misery.

I’ve seen a killer who worked in a retirement home, going from room to room, finding ways to help put those suffering to rest. It wasn’t until one old man caught on and wasn’t interested in dying so early that they finally caught the woman. I’ve even heard of a guy killing off his chemo patients who weren’t getting better, deciding it best not to prolong the inevitable. But those sorts of people are deluded into thinking that they’re doing an act of mercy, killing those who are suffering. I don’t see anything that would imply that the killer followed the depressed back to their house to kill them. How would a killer even know about them? How would he know that they’re even depressed? Especially if they were recluses like Lola?

“How about this?” Owens brushes off my comment. “Meet me at the archives and I’ll walk you through a little something that the boys and I have been putting together.”

I don’t like the sound of that. Is this the cult of the suicide killer that I’ve stumbled into? I look at Owens and wonder if I’m stepping into something that I shouldn’t. I think of the number of days I have left and I wonder if it’s worth even opening this to have a look at it. But the reality of it is—I’m off rotation. I’m not catching anymore. I’m just wasting away for a month. Sure, that sounded great a few hours ago, but I’m not so keen on it now. That’s a lot of time to fill out a very small amount of paperwork and Lola… well, she’s got me intrigued.

“Alright,” I nod. “But you owe me dinner if I have to listen to your conspiracy theories.”

“I’ll get you something real nice,” Owens grins, happy that he’s caught me, no doubt.

“I want a bacon guacamole burger.” I jab a finger at him. “Don’t even bring it if it doesn’t have everything I like.”

“You’ll get your damn guacamole burger,” Owens nods, snapping his fingers at one of the lurking uniforms.

“Bacon,” I stress, “guacamole burger. Pick up a bottle of Jameson too.”

Owens reaches in his back pocket and fishes out a hundred dollar bill and slaps it into the Mexican officer’s hand. He looks at the money and then looks at me before giving me a curt, certain nod that makes me wonder how long they’ve been looking for someone to listen to them. That makes me worry. What the hell have I walked into?

“Give me an hour,” Owens says as he stuffs his wallet into his back pocket.

As I turn to walk away, I stop and remember something. It almost escaped me for a second, but now it’s blinding me like a car on a midnight highway with its brights on, refusing to let me go another inch without addressing it. “Can I see the suicide note?” I ask Owens, who gives me with a look that shows that the note had escaped him as well. He looks up at the top of the stairs where a bald officer is leaning on the railing over the dead girl. He vanishes without a word and as I stand there, getting one last look at the bloody roses, I wonder if they’re right. If there was a killer who did this, then that means something really horrifying. “He has to still be here if he didn’t go out the door,” I tell Owens in a soft voice.

“We’ve searched this place over,” Owens informs me. “Every man you see in here is certain that this was a murder. Either he’s got one hell of a hiding spot, or he found some other way to get out. Right now, we think he fled onto the roof. There’s an emergency maintenance hatch in the closet. It’s locked now, but that doesn’t mean much if the killer planned this.”

The bald officer returns with the note in a plastic, evidence bag. He hands it to me and I look at it with a speculative eye. This was the note that put the nail in the coffin and designated this as a suicide, or at least it was what put them on this road. I look at it, taking in the look of the note, analyzing the handwriting and the lettering, the wording of it before I actually read it. Satisfied, I take in the note for all it’s worth. ‘
Death is the truest form of art
’, she says from beyond the grave. ‘
There are no decisions that can truly be made except for the one to end one’s life. I know that my parents will not understand, but those who admire my work will witness all that I have done and they will marvel. Goodbye, world, I am sorry I could not give you more than this. Lola
’. I look up at the face of the dead girl and wonder just how much of this note was actually true. Did she really want to kill herself? Assuming that Owens and the others are right, did this girl actually want to kill herself and believe all of this bullshit she allegedly wrote?

Handing the note back to Owens, I decide that it’s my duty to actually hear out everything he has to say to me. “I’ll see you in an hour,” I tell him before turning and making my way back to the door. There’s something evil in the air here, thick and oily as I breathe. Passing through the doorway, I look at the two punks who work for the coroner’s office. They look at me, asking silently with their glares whether I’m done or if they’re going to have to keep standing around. I look at them, impatient with their coldness. “She’s all yours, kids.”rbed wire are wrapped around her ankles, her legs, her waist, stomach, left armpit, elbow, and wrist. Obviously sh

“Did you remember the guacamole?” I ask as Owens hands me a brown bag. He’s holding his own. There’s a fleet of other officers that have accompanied him; it makes me feel like this is an undercover operation that they’re trying to keep witnesses distracted and those asking questions out of Owens’s way. How far does this go?

The woman at the desk smiles at Owens and he chats her up as I open my bag and look inside, letting the warmth of fries waft over my face, the smell of bacon and the burger tantalizing me. This isn’t the kind of crap that they spring for on interrogations or during lunch, Owens’s man actually went out somewhere nice for this. I look at the back of Owens’s head and feel that uncomfortable tickle in the back of my mind.

“Yeah, I got your damn guacamole,” Owens answers before we head to the elevator. Records and evidence are locked down very well in the labyrinthine bowels of the facility. This is where screw-ups and failures go to die, their careers evaporating with every passing day that they spend here in the darkness with only the ghosts of old crimes to keep them company with the other screw-ups.

The elevator dings softly as it opens and we step into it, holding the key to the room that Owens intends to take me to for his case to be made. I look at him as the doors slowly and gently close before we begin the slow plummet down to the basement archived cases. He’s silent, looking at the doors with his game face on. He truly believes whatever he’s about to tell me. He believes it enough that he’s willing to risk his credibility and standing in the police department by coming to me.

The elevators in this building don’t play any music. Instead, you get to listen to the secret, inner workings of the entire building, rumbling, groaning, the secret language of all buildings. I’ve always hated this place. I’ve hated the way it feels boxed in, locked up, and forgotten. It is the fate of thousands upon thousands of different cases, all locked away into the darkness and forgotten. When you’re murdered or your house is burned down or your business robbed, this is what happens to your history. Written across the halls and boxes of this archive is the dark history of the city, behind the grand openings, the parades, the mayoral campaigns, this is what the city truly is, written in the blood and sorrow of its citizens.

The door opens and I follow Owens’s lead. He walks down the hallway past door after door that leads back into the poorly lit store rooms of ancient crimes. There’s nothing here that makes me want to hang around down here. In fact, I feel depressed just standing here. This is how it all ends. The people keep on suffering and the crimes just lurk down here in a paper purgatory.

“This way.” Owens pushes open a door and we enter a large room that’s lined with rows of shelves full of boxes. The lights hanging overhead are mostly dead, only a few work, this is either by design or they’re just cheap on lighting, trying to save the city a few bucks. Walking in, there’s several tables in the center, running the length of the room. It doesn’t look like anyone has bothered coming in here for a very long time. I feel like I’m in the musty depths of the city’s brain, searching for ancient memories.

Setting my brown sack on the table, I watch as Owens disappears around the corner of one of the massive shelves. I open the top and reach down, fishing out a fry and sticking it in my mouth. It’s seasoned well, not too salty, not too much garlic, a hint of rosemary. Jesus, where did he get this food?

When Owens returns, he sets a box on the table and pulls off the top, tossing it behind the box, and I stare at the dozens of files. No, maybe I’m wrong. It looks like there’s a hundred files in that box. I look at it and then look up to Owens, who is standing there with a look on his face that isn’t smug or like he’s saying
I told you so
. He’s standing there with a distraught, disappointed look on his face. Owens used to work vice, a department that was pretty cut and dry when it came to convictions. He knows how to present a case, how to look for clues, where to find the dirt, and most importantly, he knows how to go back and find the trail.

“You think all of those people were murdered?” I lift an eyebrow.

“I think all of these people died under awfully suspicious circumstances,” Owens answers. He pulls out file after file, tossing it onto the table and I stare at each of them with a questionable amount of doubt, enough doubt that it feels a little more like denial. This is a lot of meat piling up. This isn’t a favor he’s asking, this is a fucking catastrophe.

“Let me stop you there.” I hold up my hand before he continues. “Bernie, I’m only around for a month. Unless you’ve got a pretty substantial lead, this is something you want to send up the chain, probably to the FBI.”

This stops Owens on his tracks and he looks at me with a doubtful look on his face. “This isn’t something that we can just hand off to someone, King. We need someone who can actually sit down and look at what we’ve compiled. We need someone to actually give a shit about these bodies that are stacking up.” He looks at me with a serious look in his eyes, which makes me think that I’m not his first choice. I’m his final act of hope.

“So you don’t have any leads?” I stick another fry in my mouth.

“Some of the victims know each other,” Owens shrugs. “But there really isn’t anything to go on, except that this is the third victim in the past two weeks. Every suicide in here is dramatic, orchestrated in a peculiar way, and completely unexpected. Everyone in the family and friends say that they never expected the victim to commit suicide. In fact, the victims are usually happy, upbeat people. Altogether, this box stinks, King.”

“I might not be able to build a case with this in one month, Owens.” I shake my head. He has no leads, no idea who this person is, just a bunch of victims. This is not the ideal situation in which to be spending my last four weeks.

“I’m not asking for you to build a case for a grand jury,” Owens shakes his head. “We want a lead on this asshole. We want someone with the ability to get around and ask the right questions. Get us a lead before your month is up and we’ll take it from there. When we make a strong enough case against the man you find, we’ll take over from there.”

“Take over?” I don’t even want to know what it is he’s implying, but there it is. It’s standing in the room like a golem, not letting me move on.

“We’re tired of watching this murderer get away,” Owens says with a near snarl in his voice, like a dagger hiding behind his back. “You know just as well as me that the system is just going to let this guy get away with his crimes just like they let everyone else like him get away.”

“No, they lock them away, Owens,” I say with a shake of my head.

“That’s letting them get away with it, King.” Owens shakes his head at me. “Don’t be naïve.”

I’ve seen enough cops sour under the pressures and the frustrations that come from good defense attorneys, a broken system, and overcrowded prisons. Laws are too lenient, liberals keep wanting more rights for prisoners, and juries are needing more of a dog and pony show to convict people who are clearly guilty. Shows on Friday night television remind people about the horrors of the wrongly accused and how they suffer because we don’t give the juries enough evidence. It’s almost enough to make men like Owens make sense, let alone feel necessary.