Rise of the Dunamy (3 page)

5

“Hello again, beautiful.” The words had become Lucian’s calling card to Sofia. He called them out to her as he tiptoed in between and around the various obstructions with his perfect smile shining brightly as he did so.

Dr. Lucian Grey was the medical examiner that worked with their department, and he and Sofia had been flirting incessantly over the past several months. The sound of his voice was always able to send a shiver up her spine.

“You look a little more alert than you did earlier.” Lucian stated cordially as he eased his way over next to her. Sofia smiled subtly as he came closer, realizing he could have positioned himself across the body from her for a better view.

“Looks like our guys earned some fresh ink last night.” Sofia said referencing the manner many gang members went about identifying the number of crimes that they had committed using tattoos to signify the number and severity.

“There you go jumpin’ to conclusions again. Funny how you don’t know jack about these guys and you just assume they’re all good with ink. Maybe they’re ‘Straight Edge’. Ever think of that? Maybe they don’t believe in tattoos.” Lucian quipped. Lucian was, aside from being gorgeous, one of the most entertaining people that Sofia had ever met. He was charming and funny on top of being highly intelligent and an unbelievable flirt.

“Straight Edge, huh? So we should be looking for a group of teenagers that murder people and disfigure their bodies, but that don’t believe in things like drinking alcohol, doing drugs, or having premarital sex?” Sofia’s comments were rife with sarcasm. “That makes no sense, Lucian.”

Lucian sat for a moment, squinting and rolling his eyes back and forth as he thought about Sofia’s comment. Then he slowly started nodding. “I might be on to something there. I mean, those kids have gotta have some release somewhere, right? I mean, damn. Teenagers that are telling themselves they can’t be sexual, can’t drink, can’t smoke, can’t this, can’t that; sounds to me like they’re off to a pretty weird start to begin with.”

“So are you saying that kids that don’t want to do that sort of stuff are weird?” Sofia inquired, knowing that Lucian was aware that she had refrained from such things during her younger years.

“Weird might have been the wrong word, but I think it’s definitely added stress to an already stressful time. It’s hard as hell to get used to your hormones gettin’ all crazy when you hit puberty, and to add all those restrictions on yourself! Those kids are probably ready to explode.” Softening his tone, he whispered to her, “I mean, not everyone is as amazing as you.” Sofia felt her face flush red as her eyes dashed around to see if anyone had heard Lucian’s comment to her. When she realized no one had, she quickly pulled herself together.

“As ridiculous as your premise is, my comment still stands because ‘Straight Edge’ kids still get tattoos,” she joked. Sofia could hear Bishop snickering behind her at Lucian’s comments, which was no surprise. Bishop was, like so many other men in the department, intrigued by Lucian. He wanted to live like Lucian, hang out with him, and do anything he could to let Lucian know that he thought he was cool in hopes that Lucian would reciprocate. Sofia saw it as a full blown man-crush. Anytime Lucian said anything relatively funny Bishop would burst out in laughter, especially when it was at Sofia’s expense, which was rare.

Lucian was one of the most beloved people around the entire precinct. Sofia had never heard a single person that had come in contact with Lucian say anything negative about him. He had an uncanny ability that allowed him to know just how to handle each person he came in contact with. He could instantly evaluate a person’s mood and knew the best way to address them to disarm as well as enamor them. Even when he was dealing with the most sullen and unpleasant men on the force Lucian was almost always able to lighten their mood, even if it was only while they were in his presence. He was always fun to be around, but he knew when it was time to get serious and take care of business. He had a keen sense for people, knowing which ones were receptive to jokes and compliments and which ones wanted him to give information and keep quiet if he had none to give. Sofia had never seen Lucian in so much as a brooding mood, much less angry or upset. His charm was undeniable, and he had the looks to match. Sofia often found herself wondering if he was actually perfect, or if she was just ignoring his faults because of her crush.

“Good God. That suit is horrible.” Lucian mused as he looked over at the corpse of the businessman.

“That’s what I said!” Bishop called out triumphantly, overjoyed that he and Lucian had made the same comment.

“Well, not everyone can have the eye for fashion you do, Lucian.” Sofia quipped, smiling as she glanced over towards the man’s body.

“Well, that’s true,” he replied. “Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and spend some money at the tailor. Maybe I should consider a side job as a fashion consultant for guys like that.”

“I bet you could make a killing,” Sofia added nonchalantly as she turned her attention back to the body before her. She rarely used humor in the workplace, but with Lucian she made an exception.

“Hell, if that’s the case, I should give up this dead body business and go do the fashion consulting thing full-time,” Lucian replied, instantly drawing Sofia’s attention back to what he was saying.

“Uh…Wait….No. Come to think of it, that sounds like a pretty small market. Seems like you would run out of clients fairly quick.” Sofia wanted to put the thought out of Lucian’s mind as she quickly considered that he might be serious. She dreaded the thought of not seeing him on a daily basis. Peeking at him out of the corner of her eye she could see him smiling at her flustered response.

“Yeah. Plus the perks around here are pretty hard to beat,” he said as turned his head and winked at her. Sofia fought to cover up her grin as she cut her eyes back to her work.

While only slightly above average height, his height was accentuated by how slender he was despite the fact that he was constantly eating. Sofia had him sized up at about 6’2” and a lean 175 pounds. He took very good care of himself, and paid plenty of attention to his appearance while never seeming overly concerned with his looks. He was always sporting new haircuts and the latest style of clothes, and had never made a poor choice in either respect.

These days he was wearing his hair in a trendy little faux-hawk that Sofia typically hated, but absolutely adored on Lucian. Although she had never asked, Sofia assumed he was in his mid to late twenties, but could probably have passed for a teenager because of his baby face and perfect skin. While he had the looks, the hair, the wonderful personality, and spoke with the unbelievably sexy combination of southern twang and urban slang, there was something behind all of it that was the biggest reason Sofia was drawn to him. Oddly enough, she had no idea what that reason was. There was something inside that perfect shell that Sofia knew was far more beautiful than anything he could present on the outside. It came across in the conversations she had with him and the care and kindness that he showed to everyone he came in contact with, including the bodies of the victims he came into contact with on a daily basis. It was that combination of characteristics, and so much more that she could see whenever she looked deep into his beautiful hazel eyes. She had stolen many moments and locked in on his eyes, taking note of the deep browns and pale greens that gathered there. However, there was something there that she couldn’t see, she just knew it was present. In Sofia’s eyes, as well as nearly every other woman he came in contact with, he was the complete package and she had developed an intense crush on him over the past year.

As Lucian worked alongside Sofia, examining the corpse of the young male, the sweet smell of his cologne caused Sofia to swoon ever so slightly. Blinking her eyes, and with a shake of her head, Sofia was able to rid herself of her romantic feelings for a moment and refocus on the task at hand. Lucian opened up his antique black-leather medical bag and pulled out a very large and very sharp metal thermometer. With a quick jab he plunged the thermometer into the victim’s liver. As he waited, he pulled an all-too-familiar aluminum wrapper from his bag.

“The two of you have got to be the most disturbing people on the face of the Earth!” Sofia exclaimed as Lucian unwrapped his breakfast burrito. He looked at her quizzically for a moment before stammering.

“Who….What now?”

“You and Bishop. How can you eat like that when we’re examining dead bodies? Mutilated, dead bodies?”

Lucian looked around for a second and located Bishop, who had overheard their little exchange and was now making his way over towards them. The pair smiled and touched their burritos together as if toasting their similar choice in breakfasts.

“You’re even more disturbing because of how close you get to them while you’re eating. The smell alone should be enough to keep you from needing to eat!”

“I do this all day!” Lucian stated in a comically high-pitched voice. “If I don’t eat near them, I’ll never get to eat!”

“Well we certainly know you’re not going to let that happen,” Sofia joked. Lucian was eating constantly. If he wasn’t eating when she was talking to him, he had generally just finished eating or was on his way to get something. She had teased him a great deal about the amount of food she had seen him eat and his unbelievable metabolism.

“Aren’t you the slightest bit concerned about contaminating the evidence?” She asked, knowing the answer before it came.

“You’ve seen me eating around these guys before. Ever seen me drop anything?” He asked defiantly. Sofia shook her head. One thing she had always noticed when she observed him eating was how careful and well-mannered he was. “Besides, I know what I’m eating. If I find any of it inside the body and outside the stomach, I’ll know where it came from and discard it… You know, as long as it doesn’t land somewhere I don’t think is all that gross… ‘Cause then I’d just eat it.” He added with a smirk, causing Bishop to gag.

“Oh my God, dude!” Bishop barked out between dry heaves, which he was struggling to keep the surrounding members of the media from seeing. He walked over to a nearby tree to further shield himself as he tried to compose himself.

“You are disgusting, Lucian!” Sofia said, wincing to keep herself from also gagging. Lucian laughed loudly as he watched Bishop struggle to regain his composure enough to continue eating his breakfast.

“I got this mental picture of you eating from inside a body.” Bishop groaned, holding his fist to his lips as he concentrated on keeping himself together.

“Fresh body, or had it been sitting a while?” Lucian continued, his grin widening as he did so.

“Oh God!” Bishop groaned again, lurching forward and placing his free hand over his mouth.

“Lucian, stop! You’re going to make him throw up all over my crime scene!” Sofia whispered loudly.

“I’m sorry… You’re right I guess.” Gathering his poise, Bishop moved over to a different area to inspect the crime scene as he allowed his stomach to settle.

“Thank you.” Sofia said in a frustrated tone.

“No sweat. I was going to say something about having to sift through his vomit, but he was really about to lose it.”

“Lucian, stop being so disgusting.” Sofia groaned, closing her eyes tightly, she began rolling her head around to try and get the mental image out. Lucian glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and snickered to himself before checking the thermometer for the temperature.

“Core temp indicates that this one’s been dead about six hours, putting estimated T.O.D. at around 3 a.m. I’ll have to take them back to get the cause of death, but I think it’s safe to assume that we already have a clue.” He said, taking a much more serious tone as he scanned the scene for the other victims. “Except for that guy of course. He doesn’t quite fit.” Lucian pointed back to poorly dressed businessman that lay several feet away near what was clearly his wallet and briefcase.

6

“W
hat are we missing here?” Sofia asked herself quietly. “Bishop, I know you don’t want to, but can you run through them one more time?”

Bishop released a long, aggravated sigh as he flipped through the pages of his pocket notepad and began reading in a dull monotone.

“The first guy was a solo. Thirty-four year old white male. He was found in an alley downtown. Career criminal. In and out of prison his whole life. Seems to have had some ties to the Aryan Brotherhood. Said to have been a potential member that was handling some of the Brotherhoods business on the outside. He had recently beaten a vehicular homicide/drunk driving wrap where the victim was a ten-year-old boy. He appeared to have been beaten to death. No witnesses at the scene and no one has come forward. The marks on the body made by the assailants led us to believe the beating was done by a group. All muscles from the victims arms and legs had been torn from the body post mortem. No useable DNA located at the scene.” Bishop snapped to his next page of notes.

“Second and third victims were black males. Both twenty-four years of age, found at the bottom of an embankment off of Holmes Blvd. Both were suspects in several ongoing murder investigations and appeared to be enforcers for a local gang. Both beaten to death, both bodies had the muscles torn from the bone at the arms and legs.” He flipped loudly again.

“Next was that really big bastard down in Five Points. Twenty-eight year old white male. Beaten to death, muscles torn from the arms and legs. No known affiliations…” Bishop looked at the page blankly for a second as if he expected more information to magically appear. “I guess that’s it on him.” He then flipped the tiny page again and brought his focus back to the current crime scene.

“Here we have five bodies. It appears that four of them robbed and killed “the suit” over there before they were attacked by our guys. One of the four has this guys’ credit cards,” he indicated towards the body of the man that clearly didn’t belong with the others based on his appearance, “and a knife with blood on it, plus the stab victim didn’t become snack food. All of his bits and pieces seem to be intact. It would be nice if the blood on the knife belonged to one of our attackers, but it looks like it’s gonna match the unfortunate Mr. Business over here. These three look familiar, but I’m not really sure why. We may have had to take them in a few times. It won’t surprise me if they all have several pings in the system. They don’t have any tats that point us in any way toward any level of gang affiliation. May have been out to make their bones.” Bishop looked over to Lucian momentarily before adding, “You know, that’s how these gangsters refer to a guy’s first kill. Lucian looked up with huge smirk on his face as he bounced his eyes between Bishop and Sofia.

“Did you seriously just try to give me a lesson on some street slang, dude?” Bishop lowered his head to conceal his smile in hopes that Lucian would take it easy on him. “Im’ma let that go this time and chalk it up to you tryin’ to make up for your terrible joke a minute ago,” Lucian continued jokingly.

“And we found out that the third guy had several complaints against him, didn’t we?” Sofia asked as she stared at the body of the victim that appeared to have been mugged. She was locked in on the specifics of the case and wouldn’t let herself be dragged into their silliness.

“Third scene, fourth victim.” He echoed, flipping through the pages in his notebook as he tried to find the specifics on the victim.

“Yep. Looks like he’s been brought in a few times for domestic violence. Beat his wife up several times, but she always refused to press charges or even make a statement.” Bishop dropped the monotone announcer’s voice he had been using to recite the previous information.

“I knew I was forgetting something when I was looking at that guy’s sheet. The wife actually came in to identify the body last night. I talked to her for a second, she didn’t look like she had any recent marks on her but I caught a glimpse of her kid in the car. He looked pretty bad off. His eye was swole shut. He never got out of the car, so I couldn’t tell how bad it was. The wife ran off as soon as she saw me looking at him. To o bad about that guy, he’s a real loss to the community,” he added with cutting sarcasm. Sofia’s eyebrows rose quizzically at this new information. “Sorry, Sofe. I meant to mention that to you sooner,” Bishop added, staring blankly into the distance as he remembered the boys’ face. As tough a cop as he was, Bishop was as soft as butter when it came to children.

“Seems pretty clear that the guys in this group see themselves as some sort of vigilantes.” Sofia muttered, not realizing that she had spoken loudly enough to shake Bishop from his trance.

“Honestly, I don’t really see the point in looking for them. I say we let ‘em keep going and see how much of the scum they can clean up before they take on someone they can’t handle.” He joked openly, getting a few laughs out of the surrounding officers. Bishop’s comment was just enough to set Sofia off.

“How did I know you would say something like that?” She added angrily, enraged at Bishop’s callous attitude. “We’ve had this discussion, Bishop. I don’t think that’s funny! Accused does not mean guilty. While we believe that the guy is probably guilty, a jury of his peers did not prove him guilty. We don’t get to be their executioners; that’s not how our system works. That doesn’t even begin to take into account what they are doing to these bodies. You’ve seen what they’re doing to these people and you know how deranged they would have to be to do such things!”

She was shouting in an effort to let everyone around her know that Bishop’s opinion was completely out of line, and that it was equally wrong for any officer on the force to find amusing.

Bishop began fanning his hands at her in an attempt to calm her as she was drawing the attention of everyone, including a few of the nearby journalists.

“No need to jump on your soapbox, honey. I’m just saying that they’re getting results where we aren’t. Some of these guys are just slippin’ through the system and we can’t do anything about it. I’m not sayin’ that they’re right, I’m just sayin’ they’re effective.” Sofia wasn’t surprised at Bishops backpedalling given the presence of the media. He knew that anything they picked up on might get put into print and that would cause him a world of trouble.

Bishop paused momentarily as Sofia calmed down. Taking a look around at the bodies he slipped a pinch of snuff into his lip; wiping the remnants away from his face before continuing, “As far as what’s going on with the bodies, yeah, that’s a pretty sick little twist.” He looked around with a rather disgusted look on his face as he surveyed the grotesque scene.

They continued to work the site, looking for some clue to lead them in any direction. This site was just like the others in that there were ample amounts of blood and DNA from the victims, but nothing useable from the killers. As was the case with the other attacks, the muscles appeared to have been ripped from the bone. Sofia could see that the remains were not uniform and didn’t show signs cutting, so any sort of knife or other utensil seemed unlikely. Each time they looked over one of these scenes they always came to the same conclusion; the attackers had to be using their teeth to strip the meat away, which should have left at least trace amounts of saliva behind, but hadn’t. The fact that none was found on any of the bodies had led Sofia and Bishop to wonder what the method was that they were using to remove the muscle. The jagged tears in the skin seemed to be most consistent with teeth marks, but it would be impossible to do what they were doing without leaving some level of trace evidence behind.

Once more, no eye-witnesses came forward during a sweep of the area, and the evidence at the crime scene was minimal. The evidence they were able to locate only appeared to further link the victims to the stabbing of the businessman. After spending an hour knocking on doors, Sofia and Bishop decided to return to the precinct to re-examine their case files.