Macabre

The Bone Fairy

The cases were all the same. Three children, killed in their beds. Each one missing parts of their spine, the vertebrae torn from their little bodies by vicious claws. Their ends silent in the coldness of the night. The corpses found in the pale light of the early morning sun by horrified parents. Protectors, caregivers, wondering what it was that they did to deserve this. Where they went wrong, why it was their family that had been targeted. Three children, under the age of ten, with loving homes and warm beds. Three children, all of whom had just lost their last tooth. A tooth that was taken from beneath their pillows.

The press had given the crimes a clever nickname, the 'Tooth Fairy Killings', and as fitting as it was, I couldn't think of it without bile rising in the back of my throat. I am the leading detective on the case, my first real murder case in over a year. Why did it have to be kids? I have none of my own, and I certainly don't think I will now. To see the pain these parents are going through. Finding their children, cold and lifeless, their tiny frames desecrated by this monster. I can't imagine that pain, and I never want to.

Now there is a fourth. A girl, found this morning by her father, just one more man whose life will be brought to a standstill.

"She was eight years old," The father said, tears slowly trailing down his pale cheeks. "she just started the third grade last week."

We sat at the families kitchen table, me on the edge of my seat with an untouched cup of coffee before me. The man in front of me was a mess, the same as the others. Swollen lips, messy hair, disheveled clothes. The eyes were the worst though, distant and forlorn. You could see their souls slowly shriveling up inside them, and they didn't even have the will to care.

I left the man to his sorrow and went to investigate the girl's room. It was pink and soft, exactly what you'd expect a little girls room to be. Except for the twin sized bed next to the door. Upon it, in a heap of crimson stained sheets, was a body. A once happy child now torn to pieces by the devil himself.

There were two things, however, that were different this time. Two little things that gave me hope.

In the small room there was not one, but two beds. The girl had a little sister, my first witness. The second finding was nestled in the floorboards next to the window. In a small puddle of blood, was the girl's missing tooth. It sat there, gleaming in the mid morning sun, a pearl just waiting to be seen. The first real piece of evidence I had found, my first lead.

"Where is your other daughter?" I asked the father.

He was still at the table, his head buried within his hands, small tremors coursing through his body.

"The hospital." His voice was strained. "They said she was in shock."

"And you stayed here?" I couldn't help but wonder why he wouldn't be with his surviving child at a time like this.

"Cops said they needed to ask questions, I offered to stay behind to answer them. That girl has been through enough, she doesn't need cops prodding her for information."

"I understand." I stood before the man, trying to sound as gentle as possible. "Your daughter, she saw it?"

"All of it."

"Did she say anything about what she saw?"

"Other than her sister getting torn apart?"

"Did she see who may have done it?"

"The tooth fairy." The man snorted and looked me dead in the eye. It was a cold stare, full of grief fueled hate. I felt a shiver run down my spine at the weight of it. "She said the fucking tooth fairy did it."