The Monster Within (9 page)

“Is there a safe back there?” The man starts heading for the swinging door and I instantly feel terrified for Courtney.

“There is,” I tell him, “but I don’t know the combination. The owner is the only one who knows it.”

“Fine,” the man shakes his head, obviously frustrated.

He reaches out and takes the bag of money from him and our fingers touch as he wrenches it away. I immediately close my eyes and feel as if this man is sucking out every last drop of energy from my body. I feel my whole body shiver and I know that this is the closest to death that I will ever be until that final moment. I watch as his entire body seems to relax and as he takes the money from me, I stare at him with horrified, but curious eyes. All the edge on him has smoothed out and he takes the money without so much as a word. He smiles at me and I watch as he runs as fast as he can toward the door. He blows through the doors and out into the heat of the day, leaving me at the register, shivering and shaking. I feel like throwing up.

“I bumped you up over an eight-person gang shooting,” Whitman says to me as he leads me personally into the bowels of the morgue. It’s odd that he would personally do anything since the white-haired, aging professional is notorious for his crabby, grouchy demeanor. I don’t understand why so many people are impatient with him or find him so infuriating to deal with. Whitman is a professional, a dedicated craftsman who understands his trade better than anyone. All he wants is respect and admiration for what he does and I guess that I’m one of the few in the world who is willing to give him the respect he wants. It’s never hurt me to give the guy a compliment or tell him when I’m actually impressed, which is most of the time. “You’re going to have some enemies for me doing this and you’re not going to like what I’ve got for you,” Whitman says, looking over his glasses at me as we walk down the corridor, passing the other doctors who have taken up residency in the morgue.

I don’t like the sound of that. Why wasn’t I going to like what he’s found? But more importantly, there’s a very dangerous question that I need the answer to. “Who was in charge of the gang shooting?” I ask, with a small amount of worry in the back of my mind.

“Detective Redman and a couple of boys from vice are interested in finding out who’s responsible for the shootings,” Whitman sighs. “I don’t particularly care for the breed of detectives that are coming out of vice. They’re all results these days. They don’t give a damn about the people, but that’s just me, after all.”

Fuck Redman. If I make his life a little more difficult, then it’s no sweat off of my brow. In fact, I’d like to flip him the bird and clutter up his own investigations as much as I can before I leave—especially if he’s working gang cases now. The task force must be overloaded if they’re reaching out to homicide to help clean up some of their messes.

It’s cold in this building, for obvious reasons, but it’s definitely the feeling that I associate with death, ever since I first entered this building, the cold has always been the power of death. Making our way down the hallway, Whitman pushes through a swinging door and we step into a concrete and metal room that makes me feel frigid, sterile, and completely dead. In the center of the room is an enormous light that cranes up from the floor and looks down on the table like an enormous sunflower. On the table is the familiar, naked body of Jenny Martinez. It’s a shame seeing beautiful women naked on that table when I would have much rather seen them alive and naked. There’s nothing appealing about a naked dead woman. They lose all of their form and attraction, much like a Renaissance painting of a bored, disinterested woman who also happens to be buck naked.

“Miss Martinez.” Whitman holds out a hand as if he’s introducing us. Grabbing his clipboard with all of his notes and his report, he doesn’t even bother looking at them. He’s a professional and he knows each of his subjects with intimate understanding and memory. I wonder if he slips and forgets things like his keys or his wife’s birthday because his memory is stuffed full of dead bodies. There’s something about Whitman that has always impressed me. “As you know, she was found strangled with two metal pins inserted into her wrists, causing multiple lacerations to arteries and veins. The amount of trauma she inflicted upon her wrists is substantial. Quite frankly, it’s impressive that she managed to insert the second pin, but I have no doubt that
she
did it.” He looks up at me over his glasses to make sure that I’m following him. I look up from Jenny’s still face to his, nodding in understanding. “Even though she lost substantial amounts of blood, it was the homemade noose that she assembled that finally killed her.”

I look down at the stitches sewn down her chest where Whitman has sliced her open and peeled back her skin, flesh, and ribs. I know that he’s taken everything out of her and examined it thoroughly. Like I keep stressing to everyone that talks to me about Whitman, the guy is a savant when it comes to reading the dead.

“Thankfully,” Whitman says with a heavy heart, “it was the fall that killed her. It snapped her neck and she died the moment inertia stopped. Jenny perished early this morning around eight-fifteen, which is consistent with when the first reports were called in.”

I look down at Jenny and furrow my brow. “Did you find any drugs in her system?”

“I did,” Whitman nods, holding his clipboard to his chest and delving into that labyrinth of memories to dredge up what exactly Jenny had inside of her. “She had been drinking extensively the night before, over the legal drinking limit. But she also had substantial residue of THC, and the amounts suggest that she smoked a marijuana cigarette, nothing more.”

“No manipulatives or hallucinogens?” I press.

“Nothing like that.” Whitman is intercepting my line of thought and holds up his hand. “There’s nothing chemically in her system to signify that she was manipulated through drugs; however, that doesn’t rule out coercion. Someone might have talked her into doing this, but again, by eight in the morning, she should have been dealing with one hell of a hangover. She shouldn’t have been drunk enough to be convinced that killing herself was a good idea, and certainly, if I’m not mistaken, the first pin would have snapped her out of that.”

“The neighbors said that she had guys over every night,” I sigh, and fold my arms across my chest, trying to find something that I can grasp onto and hold before Mendez eventually gets around to calling me and asking what the hell I’m doing. “Did she have sex the night before?”

“Definitely,” Whitman nodded. “However, it appears to be consensual, though given her intoxication, she might have been taken advantage of, but no one forced themselves inside of her. She’s completely intact.”

“Shit.” I shake my head.

“You wanted her to be raped?” Whitman lifts a snowy eyebrow at my direction.

“No,” I shake my head again. “God, no. What about bruising or any signs of struggle?”

“Nothing,” Whitman shakes his head now. It’s his turn. “There’s nothing under her fingernails, there’s no bruises and there’s nothing that would point to the fact that she struggled with someone before committing suicide.” Whitman puts the clipboard down on the table next to Jenny and sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, Steven,” he looks at me like it’s his job to console me, “but Jenny took her own life. But, that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t someone in that room with her when she jumped out of that window. Someone very well may have convinced her that killing herself was in her best interest. I’ve seen cases like that and they’re very, very difficult to prove.”

I nod. I know. It’s going to be a nightmare to try and make this stick on someone. “Thanks, Whitman,” I say with an appreciative grin. “I owe you a bottle of scotch.”

“Single malt,” Whitman corrects me as I turn back toward the doors.

Throwing open the doors, I step out into the fading light of the day. All day today I’ve been trying to make this a case that I can use, but so far, I’ve turned up with empty hands. This isn’t going in my direction. In fact, I’m beginning to think about what I’m going to say to Mendez when he finally calls me into his office to demand answers.
This is what you’ve brought me to, Owens, I hope you’re satisfied. I still think someone killed Jenny Martinez, but she’s not going to be the one that leads me to the killer they’re all hungry for. The man they want is still out there and he’s going to keep killing.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. My phone begins vibrating and as I retrieve it, I already know who it is that’s calling me. No doubt that Detective Evans was the one that spilled the beans, saying that I’d taken over the case like some bandit on a train. I look at the number, the name programmed in. It’s one of the few numbers I have from the precinct. It flashes Mendez on the tiny flip phone screen and I tuck the phone back into my pocket. I’m frustrated. I’m scared that I’m not going to find out where the clues are hidden, where the pieces will lead. Jingling the keys in my pocket, I look toward where my Shelby is parked and I wish that I could go back in time and tell Owens to find someone else. That would have saved me a whole bunch of trouble.

My phone stops vibrating as I drop down into the driver’s seat, looking at the morgue and the busy road that I’m going to take to find my release. I need to blow off steam. If I keep thinking about this case, then I’m going to end up drunk and passed out at my house. I don’t want to waste another night staring at the walls, hoping that a clue will jump out at me.

I pull out of the parking lot and let the current of the city take me. When I’m stressed or strung out, I try to let my mind melt away. I shut off the radio, roll down the windows and just drive, letting the soul of the city pull me along. I don’t worry about a thing. I don’t think about a thing. I just drive, hoping that the world will fade away and I’ll get a chance to just listen to the secret words spoken by this festering place I call home. Usually nothing happens. Usually the emptiness is too much and it inevitably collapses into the sad, quiet despair that comes with self-reflection. The remorse that comes with the regrets of my past makes me stop somewhere to get drunk, eat until I feel like exploding, or find someone who I can fuck.

As the sun sinks into the horizon, I end up on Wayward Avenue which is so aptly named that it hurts. It’s almost as bad that it feels like an architectural pun in the city’s grand design. Someone was designing the city and said “Hey, guys, we’ve got to put all the whores somewhere. Why not call it Fuck Alley?” “No,” says the other guy, “we’ll call it Wayward Avenue. I mean, they’re only doing it to pay their way through nursing school.” I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how it played out at the planning and zoning meeting when they were discussing this particular street. But the result was the same, no matter the genesis of the title. The Avenue is lined with tattoo parlors, strip clubs, cheap, rundown bars, and pawn shops that will buy virtually anything, unless it’s hot at the moment. The streets are lined with girls who are walking in clothes that look like no woman should ever proudly put on and decide to hit the town in.

There’s something for every taste on this street. There are men dressed as ladies, ladies dressed as men, women dressed in long evening gowns, girls dressed up in hardly anything, and of course there’s the girls dressed in costume to please any man’s desire. I drive with the other multitude of hunters, looking for something to help ease their suffering, quiet their rage and frustration. I know most of the men who work vice on the Avenue don’t truly care about the whores. The whores are the lucrative aspect of the Avenue, they’re interested in the dangerous aspect of the Avenue. They’re looking for the dealers, the cooks, and the muscle that runs the darker current of the street.

As for me, I’m looking for someone in particular. I have tastes that most of the ragged, aged, and worn whores won’t satisfy. It costs me more, but in the end, there are very few prostitutes on the Avenue that are worth the money you put out. Honestly, the clubs are where you want to go if you’re interested in class and beauty. Those are the girls that are only in for a few years before they’re done. They wipe their hands clean and move on, replaced by a fresh batch of young, innocent, greedy youths. But there’s a certain amount of ceremony that goes into the clubs. It’s all about knowing who to talk to, how to talk to them, and what to say at the right moment. It’s a dance that I’m not willing to step into tonight. Right now, I just need something to pass the time.

I see her. She’s dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl and is one of the more modest of the girls that are standing outside of the pawn shop that their pimp is probably running. She has long legs that are skinny enough that she looks young enough. Her thighs aren’t chunky or too muscular, just the way I want them. She’s got a small ass, not as plump as I’d like, but it’ll do. She needs to do some squats. Her breasts aren’t large, which is fine with me. Pulled back in a ponytail is her platinum blonde hair. I slowly pull into the parking lot and park right next to her. She’s chewing bubblegum and has way too much make-up on. Someone told her that was what men want, and maybe some do, but I don’t.

She looks at the car with her small, dark eyes, wondering no doubt if the man inside is a killer or a rapist. I can’t imagine the fear that must go into that line of work. It makes women hard. It makes them cold, creatures of stone that can only find comfort among themselves. They ruin themselves by placing their lives in the hands of strangers who care nothing for them. It is a life of suffering and pain that can only be ended by their choosing. I don’t understand it. I don’t think I ever want to. They have a habit of turning into dark, monstrous things that hardly resemble humans.

“You looking for something?” the girl asks as I roll down the window. She approaches the window bravely, confident that the others around here will protect her. I feel dozens of eyes on me as she leans over and gives me an ample opening to look at her cleavage.

“I am,” I tell her, keeping my eyes out on the street. I wonder how many times Vice has seen me out here and decided to look the other way.