God Makes Them Mean

Chapter 9

We wait for the lab-rats to do their thing. We wait for the two extra teams to show up. Gomez and Pallavicini, an odd couple if there ever was one, and Bierhoff and Giannelli, the former in his usual cowboy boots and hat, the other impeccably dressed, honoring the ages old myth of the latin lover. I still don't know how he can afford suits that would pay for six months worth of grocery shopping.

Pat is still white as a sheet. I tell him go to the corner store and for chrissake buy some mints that your breath could kill a dead cow.

We split up, we canvass all the apartments. We knock on doors, we show our badges, we step in, we sit down, we talk. The building is brand new. Most of the apartments are still empty, unsold. Others are waiting for their tenants or new owners to step in. The monster chose his location wisely. Nobody lives on the floor where the butchery happened. The apartment directly on top and the one below are equally vacant. Nobody has heard anything. No screams, no music to cover the shrieks that must've come from that abattoir.

Unless they were dead before the defiling began, they must've been heavily drugged and comatose when the culprit had started working with his knife.

'I moved in just three days ago,' this single man says. 'I work at Loyola. I keep late hours, plenty of papers to correct and sadly students aren't what they used to be. There's a lot more to correct, down to simple spelling. Spelling, can you believe it?' He rolls his eyes. 'Each paper takes ages to grade now.' He's in his early forties, good looking in a professorial sort of way.

'You haven't heard anything?'

'No,' he shakes his head.

'You say you keep late hours, but it's eight PM and you're already here. How come?'

'What are we talking about? I mean, you said there's been a crime, but what crime?' he asks, leaning conspiratorially forward, elbows on knees.

'Murder. Ugly, nasty, death-sentence murder.'

'There's no-'

'You know what I mean. Professor Lubow, if you have an alibi, please feel free to tell us now. I honestly urge you to.'

He nods, red in the face. He walks to the bedroom door, opens it, and in steps a nice looking girl in a man's robe. From what I can see she's young enough to be his daughter, no older than twenty.

He looks at me apologetically. 'I could get fired if the department got wind of this,' he explains. 'Ignore the could part, actually. My career would be ruined.' He looks at me pleadingly. 'I really don't want to go to teach in England. Their salaries are bullshit.'

'Usually the right procedure in this case is to keep it in your pants, Professor. Or close the door of your office and jerk off until you're too tired to think about real sex.'

I write down the girl's name and address. I jot down her statement. I try hard not to stare at what I can see of her. And that's a lot. A lot more than I've ben seeing recently. I close my note pad. 'If I were you, I'd stay locked in here until this thing dies down a bit.'

'How long is that going to take?' she asks. 'There's a frat party tonight.'

'I hope you two lovebirds are really into each other, because it will take a while.'

I turn once, on the doorstep. I look at the Professor with a glance that should be half paternal, half judgemental. 'Change your habits, Prof. These things have a nasty way of blowing up in your face.'

The next apartment is empty, the next seems lived in because of the welcoming mat, but nobody answers my knocks on the door. I leave a note. I urge them to contact us asap. The one at the end of the corridor sports a Christmas Wreath. I knock. Coming, somebody says. A woman's voice.