(Excerpt from Poe Place)
It was drizzling as he waited by the bus-stop; waited for the man he knew would come. An economical twitch of thin fingers popped his coat collar up in a futile attempt to stop the rain from finding his work shirt. He hunched and fought impatience and anticipation. It was one o’clock so it wouldn’t be long. The retard was like clockwork.
Sure enough, a few seconds later the shambling figure came around the corner. He walked with a limp – his watcher did not know if it had been part of the man’s congenital damage, or some later malady. Did it matter? It only made him a more appealing target. The waiting man had been stalking this one for weeks now - learning his routine, hovering around the edges of the imbecile’s life until he was certain of the best approach to use.
“Hey Donnie!” He stepped in front of the heavily jacketed man. “I really need some help. Can you give me a hand?” Startled wide set eyes met his as the young man struggled to cope with this interruption to his routine.
“What’s wrong, mister?”
Donnie hadn’t asked the obvious question: “Who are you, mister?” Donnie didn’t know him, at least not like he knew Donnie. But the idiot wanted to be helpful anyway. Such luscious innocence. It felt like falling naked into a mound of silk-encased pillows. In a city of lions, this guy was a lamb. He knew he’d chosen the right method, and the right victim.
“I’ve lost my kitty. Can you help me look for it?”
The too large mouth hung open and trembled. “Your kitty is lost? Poor kitty!”
“I last saw him in there,” he pointed at building across the street, a turn-of-the-century apartment building. Semi-opaque plastic sheeting obscured many of the windows and the dark brick walls were trapped in a cage of flimsy scaffolding. “I think he might be hiding but I’m sure he’ll come out for you.”
For a second the mark hesitated. Donnie was due at his McDonald’s job in fifteen minutes. To leave to help someone meant he risked missing his bus. It had only been a month since his mom had stopped walking him to the corner and after his shift stood waiting for him to walk him home. “You’ve got this, hon,” she’d said to him. “Just always go straight to work and come straight home and you’ll be fine. You’re my big boy now!” There had been tears in her eye as she had hugged him.
The silent watcher had also been waiting for the bus on that day, baseball cap drawn low over his face. He had been the only one to notice the tension in her shoulders and back drain away as the mother left her burden by the curb. That was when he knew he had to save that woman, had to free her permanently from the crushing weight of this quirk of meiosis.
“I’ll give you a lift to work after we find him,” the stalker promised, and relief flooded those flat features.
“Thanks, mister!” A sickle-moon smile gaped in the full-moon face.
The man-child’s charm was magnetic. So much goodness, so much trust and willingness to please, all wasted on a defective body and a stunted mind. Amazing what a stray chromosome could do. He almost understood why someone might dump so much time, money and effort on prolonging and enriching a life so pointless.
Lead the way across the street, he unlocked the ornate door, letting his prey precede him across the threshold. Once again he admired that limp, the squat neck, every malformed feature that summed how unfit this man was to live. Each breath was a drain on his species, robbing oxygen from more worthwhile lungs.
His own breathing was shallow, although that was due to anticipation and not deprivation. “Up the stairs,” he directed in a quiet voice as he wiped the door handle down to erase his prints.
Despite outward appearances, the building was not derelict or vacant. The apartments were being renovated to bring them up to code - the sound of circular saws, hammering and men’s voices echoed from the floors above. Most of the residents left during the day to escape the noise. It really was perfect.
It was almost too perfect, and he tried to not get spooked by that. Someone was smiling down on his plans, clearing the way, that was all. He was doing good work here.
Even with the evidence of activity, there was no one between them and the second story landing apartment he had staged earlier this afternoon. Wonderful. “I saw him go into that apartment – the one with the open door.”
The defective thirty-year old disappeared into the apartment and the predator cautiously followed, alert to the least hint that his movements were observed. He was taking an enormous risk, but he couldn’t live his life any other way. He would help that mother just like he had helped all those other families, all those other homes saddled with the deadweight of dependents who could only take, never give. His blood sang through his veins, throbbing with the hymn his calling. He slipped his gloves out of his pocket and onto his hands.
“Oh kitty, there you are!”
Slipping through the doorway, he saw the sloppy smile and his own lips curved upwards in controlled approval. “Ah, you found him! Well done. Thank you. Here, give him this treat and we can go.” He pressed a treat into the moist meaty paw, trying to not shudder. So close.
As the perpetual child bent over, the killer slipped a cosh from his pocket. One swift smack and it was done. His prey’s collapse was covered by the hammering on the floor above, exactly as the murderer had planned. “Oh my wonderful Lamb – you are going to make such a nice present,” he purred as he eased the door closed.
***
The victim was a male; adult in appearance although his features were odd in a way that Forensic Technician Lindberg just couldn’t place in this context. The deformation of death didn’t help - once elastic skin stubbornly preserved the pressures of rough handling in a way that was a blessing to forensics but a challenge to a mortician. Not that this young man would be getting an open casket.
She had seen distortion close to this before when a head had been transported in a bag… no, not right. Look harder.
Bet squatted down to peer closer at the face. The eyes were closed - not always the case - and the illusion of sleep was enhanced by the satin-carmine blood that blanketed the floor. Was it deformation, or had the nose been that flat before death?
Bet’s hands encased in their purple nitrile twitched, but she moved on to other details before the unsettled feeling distressed her into touching something she shouldn’t. Balling her hands into fists, she stood.
The most striking detail of the body was that there wasn't one, at least not in within the confines of this bathroom. The mortal remains of the victim consisted of two hands severed at the wrist and the head severed at what looked like the third cervical vertebrae. The quantity of blood slowly soaking into the hardwood floor almost constituted a body part in its own right. Too large for the victim to have been killed anywhere but here.
“Where is the rest of him?” Bet asked the lead detective.
“We were hoping you could tell us, Lindberg,” Bradley Adair flicked nicotine-stained fingers at her and walked out the door, leaving her alone. Brad knew it was the only way she worked.
Eying the remains from this distance wasn’t working. There were no patterns she could see from here.
Her eyes roved around the room, isolated details flicking into focus and standing out as if highlighted with a laser-targeter. If there were fibers hidden on the remains, she was going to wait until they got to the lab, but the smears and droplets of blood leading from pool to door told a clear tale…
