Part One - Evil Times 3 - Chapter Two

The Quick Call

“Hey, Baker. Got a few minutes?”

“Sure, Ed. I’m only up to my ass in blood. What’s up?”

“I have something special to show you. Right across the street from you. Apartment 230.”

“Okay. I’m just finishing a few loose ends. I’ll be there in five to ten.”

Three Minutes Ago

At the catholic church of St. Peter’s, a man with labored breath, stepped inside the church, and bent to one knee, making the sign of the cross with his right hand. He then stood erect and walked over to a confessional booth. He opened the door, sat down, and waited a few minutes.

On the other side of a screen, a door opened, and a priest sat down.

“Good evening. How may I help you?’

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”

“Sinned in what way, my son?”

“I have broken one of God’s, the Father’s commandments.”

“I see. Which commandment is this?”

“Father, I have killed. Two people tonight.”

Silence.

“Father, did you hear me? I said I killed two people.”

“Yes, I heard you. By all that is holy, I am not allowed to divulge this confession with the police. Do you understand this? This confession in between you and me; and Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father.”

“Sure, I do. That’s why I came here.” The voice, which was first unsteady and high-pitched, now became low and ominous. “I can get Christ’s forgiveness through you, and I will be absolved of all wrongdoing.”

“It isn’t as simple as that. We must pray together. Then you, of your own volition, must turn yourself in. It is the only way to be truly forgiven by Christ and the Father. My son, as the gospel is known, and by it, men were saved through faith, since the very beginning of time. Let us now pray that we will find a path that‒‒”

“Bullshit, bullshit; BULL-FUCKING-SHIT! I ought to slice your fucking throat right here, right now!”

Silence again.

The door opened, then banged closed.

He was gone.

At the Latest Scene

“Busy night, huh, Baker?”

“Seems that way, Ed. What do we have here?”

“A fresh kill.

“A Mrs. Ethel Mattingly, seventy-eight. Retired seamstress, widow over ten years. She has one son who lives on the other side of the coast where all the surfers coin those stupid phrases. She lived here alone. Moderate lifestyle for a woman her age, nothing fancy.

“I put in a call to have the neighborhood patrolled. If they spot anyone suspicious, and like the norm; if he or she looks or acts suspicious, we pull them in for questioning.

“But whoever this is, they have some big balls, or tits.”

Baker pulled the sheet back, Ed covered Mrs. Mattingly with to just below her hips.

“Another one. Just like the victim across the street. Seems our boy‒‒”

“Or girl,” said Ed, half smiling.

“… or girl, is making the rounds tonight and quickly. What do you make of the time of death?”

“My guess, until the F-Team shows, which should be them I hear coming now. I’d say within twelve to twenty, as in minutes. But, Baker, that isn’t all.” Ed pointed at the victim’s face.

Baker leaned closer and looked at the face and upon closer inspection, saw blood slowly tearing from her eyes and matted the sides of Mrs. Mattingly’s hair above her ears.

With the apartment door wide open, the F-Team walked in and immediately set up shop, and started taking pictures, dusting the living room for prints, looking for hair fibers, and anything else to give them clues as to who the killer is.

Reaching for a pair of medical gloves from her jacket pocket, she pulled a pen from her shirt pocket and edged it under one eyelid. Lifting it back, she flinched backward for a second.

“Puts a stutter in your step, huh? He or she cut both eyes out, and to make this even stranger; he or she must have taken the eyes, because they aren’t anywhere to be found.”

“Great. Now we have a souvenir collector and a sick mind all wrapped up in one neat package: running around Montie in some damn place. We need to nail this perp quick.”

“It doesn’t end there though. The hits keep rolling in. Here is what was tacked to her chest.”

Ed held up an evidence bag, and Baker read what was inside.

LIVE ON EES.

“My first thought was monkey-see, monkey-do, but the markings are just too fresh to be anything other than the same person.”

“Ed, we have an intensely shrewd and perhaps insane person at the same time we are dealing with.”

Baker walked to the two front windows of Mrs. Mattingly’s apartment and looked out across the way. She realized then what the message really meant.

“Ed, look at this.”

He looked in the same direction as she did.

“If that don’t beat all. Straight across from her. Same floor. She saw the whole damn thing. That’s why she called 911. That’s why I came over here to interview her. I was too late, and maybe by minutes; but he or she can’t be that far ahead of us.”

“The even sadder part, he had seen her watching. Somehow, he figured out exactly which apartment she was in and gained entrance, obviously forced. I would say he nearly kicked it off its hinges, and he, or she, wasn’t looking for conversation.

“You know what they say about things coming in three’s, Ed? Whoever killed these people, probably has one more to kill. Both Mrs. Mattingly and Arnold Kilpatrick both had notes attached to them.”

“You’re thinking that next person won’t have a hearing problem.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

As she stared out across the way, then back at Mrs. Mattingly, now being photographed, and Carl and crew bagging and tagging potential evidence; Carl nodded her way with the understanding once he got any hits back on what they’ve collected, he would let her know. Both notes would be given to a handwriting expert for analysis.

The apartment, like the one across the street, was gone over with a fine-tooth comb, as the saying goes. Nothing would be left unturned.

Including the message.

Another Quick Call – 10:35 p.m.

“Stevie, I won’t be home until around midnight, I’m afraid. It’s been a rough night. If you’re awake when I get in, fine. If not, we’ll go out tomorrow morning for an early breakfast. I love you.”

She gets Stevie every other summer and every other major holiday for two weeks. This year she would have him for Christmas.

Mark couldn’t handle her being a cop.

Hell, sometimes, neither could she.