Flawless Dreams Page 6

  “Who the fuck is it!” I shouted at him. Xavier gave me a look and then dropped my gaze.

  Nine

  The driver’s side of my car was coated in fresh blood. Some of it was still slowly running down the side. It was still pooling below the body. Very few people could wield a sword effectively. It wasn’t the most common weapon of a killer, but that was exactly what had inflicted this damage. Judging by the damage, it was a Claymore or something equally large and brutal.

  The face had been so damaged, I almost hadn’t recognized it. Someone had unleashed a great deal of rage on Christian Hunter. The question was how. He was supposed to be inside the Fortress, not running around Kansas City, getting murdered, and propped up on my car.

  Even as a super psychopath, Patterson wouldn’t have been able to use a sword like a Claymore. He was too short. They didn’t make a miniature version. Apex was big enough, but it wasn’t his style. Eric could probably do it, he was a lot like Patterson, but he was in protective custody in an unknown prison in an undisclosed location.

  Xavier was already making notes. Our crime scene people were walking around collecting evidence. I was standing a few feet away from everyone taking it all in and wondering if I should worry about becoming a suspect. The only real evidence for me not doing it was that I was short and the sword used on Hunter wasn’t.

  Caleb was talking to Gabriel or Malachi. I didn’t know which and I didn’t care. Fiona was standing near me, watching. Rachael was trying to be helpful.

  “For the record, I did not do that,” I told Fiona.

  “I know. You might stab him to death, but those aren’t stab wounds. It looks like someone took a giant machete to him.”

  “Sword,” I told her. “I’ve only seen a few victims killed by swords, but they each have telltale signs. This was a straight edge, judging by the way the wounds are open. If it had a rounded edge, like a scimitar, they would get shallower and narrower as they reached their arc with a thicker, fuller cut in the middle because that’s where the force really is.”

  “Good eye,” Xavier didn’t look up.

  Several cops were looking through the brush and bushes near the entrance to the park. However, one did not throw away a sword like this one. It would be hard to find, hard to trace, and even harder to get rid of. A well-balanced, well-crafted sword with a long blade was a rarity. I began counting off the types of blades that could have been used and came up with four, including a Claymore. Most would need good sized men to use them. The shortest was about 40 inches long, which didn’t seem long, until a person started trying to use it coupled with the weight and their arm length. Most weighed a couple of pounds, but could weigh up to seven, again it didn’t seem like much, but with the length of the sword and a person’s arms, there was a reason swordsmanship was dying. The lighter, shorter Kitana was a much easier sword to use and therefore, preferred to heavy European models or even the Kalis and Kilij. I said none of this because I had threatened to kill Christian Hunter in very painful ways. Any of these swords would make for a slow, painful death considering I didn’t see stab wounds.

  The other reason I was keeping my mouth shut was because I had taken some sword fighting lessons during my suspension. Our encounter with Turkish Jack had left me realizing that I lacked some skills. Skills my brother Eric and my grandfather Patterson had. I might never encounter a sword wielding serial killer again, but I wanted to be prepared in case I did. My baton had not worked well and I was sure it was me and not the actual baton, since Eric had done some fancy stuff with it.

  One very difficult question was burning itself into my brain; why hadn’t I heard it? The blood on my car and pooling under Hunter’s body said it had happened right there. While I hadn’t been particularly close to the entrance, Hunter should have done some screaming or shouting or made noises of a struggle. Much like my sense of smell, my hearing was well above average. I should have heard something, yet I hadn’t. It didn’t make sense to me and it would make even less sense when I tried to explain it.

  Xavier was now talking to Ivan Daniels. Ivan was the oldest brother of Nadine Daniels and a homicide detective. They were both whispering, which made me feel like they were talking about me. I turned away from them, ignoring them and found myself staring at Rachael. She was maybe a foot away from me. Her face was pale. Her lips nearly colorless with dark circles under her eyes. Some murders got to even the most experienced investigators, she was practically a novice at this. Trying to process what she was feeling and thinking at the moment was impossible for me. I could guess that she was in shock and I could almost understand why; bodies cut up with swords were messy. This one had been cut up and set against my car. Add in that we had history and well, yes, I supposed shock might be the correct response. I caught Fiona’s attention. She was much better at dealing with emotions than I was.

  She came over and began to talk softly to Rachael. Rachael jumped as if she’d seen a ghost. I shook my head and walked past them, towards the crime scene techs and the bushes that lined the parking lot. That’s when I realized Caleb was gone. I spun in a slow circle looking for the man I had come to think of as my friend and Malachi’s keeper, but didn’t see him.

  “Ace, I gotta ask,” Ivan said to me.

  “Where’s Caleb?” I asked him, ignoring the fact that he was about to interrogate me.

  “He is testing something with Xavier. Did you know Christian Hunter had escaped?” Ivan asked.

  “What do you mean he escaped?” My head snapped back to where Ivan was standing. “He could not have escaped. He was inside the Fortress. It is impervious to escape attempts.”

  “He was being transported yesterday to a court hearing. The transport was ambushed, all the Marshals were killed, Hunter escaped.” Ivan told me, watching my face. I let his words sink in.

  “Good grief,” I finally shook my head. “I was not aware that he had a court date.”

  “It was being kept quiet. Hunter had agreed to talk to a judge in closed chambers about the group of men he worked with and for. You know I gotta ask, did you kill him?”

  “No.” I sighed. “If he was willing to talk, I had no reason to kill him.”

  “You did threaten him. It’s well documented.”

  “Yes I did and if I had done it, his blood wouldn’t be ruining the paint job on my car. I am not going to stand here and pretend it bothers me that he is dead. You and I both know I will lose no sleep over it. He was among the worthless human beings I ever met. However, I did not kill him and I certainly would not have done it in this way. I would have made sure it was slower,” I told Ivan.

  “At least you’re honest,” Ivan gave me a grim smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “What about any of your known associates?”

  “Malachi is not in town. Patterson, well I am in the dark about his whereabouts, a sword does not strike me as his weapon of choice, too fast. He prefers to beat people to death, that is why his cane is made of ironwood, it keeps him from damaging his hands or feet. Everyone else is more likely to have shot him. I do not know many swordsmen. Brent Timmons, but I assume he is still being held in the Fortress. That super psycho, Turkish Jack, he could have done it, easily from what I saw, but again, I presume he is in the Fortress. Feel free to jump in if I’m wrong. Eric could do it. He was into combat training before he went to prison.”

  “Like mixed martial arts?” Ivan asked me.

  “No, more,” I searched for the words. “Look, it is not in his files because like everyone in my family, he seems to have a classified part of his life that is above both our paygrades. When I was a kid, I can remember my brother just disappearing for weeks at a time. If I asked where he was, my parents always said he was off at a retreat or something. It never made sense to me, but as far as I know, my brother never once went hunting. How does a man with no military training and no hunting experience climb to the top of a building and start picking people off with a rifle? I will go one step further, how does a man with no experience manag
e to kill forty psychopaths inside a well-guarded prison with simple things like a fork or a pencil? I watched my brother wield my baton against a man with a sword and he knew exactly what he was doing. Of all my associates, Eric would be the most likely to be able to do this damage. He is also the least likely to be responsible, because wherever he is, he is under armed guard and I do not believe they let him out to kidnap and kill Christian Hunter. Even if they had, if what you say is true, Eric would not have done it. Remember, this is the man that hates cop killers with enough passion to go to prison for it.”

  “You make me feel like my family is normal.” Ivan told me.

  “I think I make everyone feel like their family is normal.” I tried to fake a smile and ended up frowning.

  “What about you know who?” Ivan asked.

  “Do you see a bullet hole?” I countered. “He would have shot him and he would not have broken him out of prison. My guess, whoever did this, did so because he was going to talk. None of my associates would kill him for that. They might have killed him afterwards, but not before. They all want the same thing; this thing brought down so that we are all safe.”

  “Yeah, my sister keeps trying to lock the kids and me up.” Ivan hadn’t written anything I said down. It was unlike him. He was usually one of the most fastidious homicide detectives I knew. If he hadn’t been a single dad with a litter of children, I probably would have suggested him instead of Vlad Daniels for the SCTU. However, families and serial killers didn’t mix, even I knew that.

  “Even with attempting to listen to a sword fight in the parking lot, she wouldn’t have heard it,” Xavier said. “I shouted. Caleb shouted. The air and woods is too dense for the sound to carry on. Even if Hunter had screamed at the top of his lungs, from her position, she would have just barely heard any audible sound and it wouldn’t have sounded like a scream.”

  “And I don’t think he screamed.” Caleb huffed and sucked in air. “He knew he was going to die. It’s hard to imagine that a guy facing a sword could think anything different. He probably went quietly because he could. Also, he knew it was Cain’s car, he probably figured she’d go down for it.”

  “Seriously?” I looked at Xavier. “The air is too dense for sound to carry?”

  “Fine, I don’t know why the sound didn’t carry, I just know that it didn’t. It should echo here and it doesn’t. Dense air is the only thing I can think of.” Xavier shrugged.

  “I’m not writing down dense air,” Ivan told him. “I’ll go with Caleb’s theory that he probably didn’t make any noise.” Ivan finally pulled out a notebook and began to scribble stuff down. I watched his hand move. “Anything you want to add, Ace?”

  “Not particularly,” I answered. If I had been Christian Hunter, I would have put up a fight. I believed Caleb and Malachi would have as well. As a matter of fact, I could not think of a single psychopath that wouldn’t have. “Is it possible that he had this done to him? Could he have set the entire thing up?”

  “You think he set up a meeting with the judge to escape custody and plot his own murder?” Ivan asked.

  “It is the only thing that makes sense to me at the moment.” I looked around the parking lot. “Framing me would require a murder weapon though.”

  “Have you actually looked in your car?” Xavier asked.

  “Not since I arrived last night,” I told him.

  “On it,” Ivan started shouting. In my trunk was a sword, covered in blood. A technician brought it over to Ivan. Ivan took the hilt with a gloved hand and nearly dropped it. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s a Viking long blade,” I told him. “Probably weighs six pounds, maybe eight.”

  “It’s as tall as you are,” Ivan said to me. “Now, I don’t know a lot about swords, but I do know a little about you. There’s no way you are using this as a murder weapon. If it was a dagger, I’d put you in handcuffs, but this is ridiculously large for someone of your build to use, even if you are capable of some pretty interesting feats.” Ivan looked at Caleb.

  “Don’t look at me, I see no point in swords,” Caleb answered.

  “We’ve got blood in the trunk and I don’t think it’s Hunter’s,” some woman came and told Ivan.

  “There is no reason for there to be blood in my trunk,” I told him.

  “Ace, for the next 24 hours, pretend I’m actually investigating you for this. Then you can go back to work.”

  “A full day? Well, my feet should be warm by then. I have no furniture. I hate being at my house.” I told him.

  “You could go see my sister,” Ivan answered.

  “Home it is.” I looked at the team. “Well, someone give me a ride home and then go find some clues or something.”

  Display

  Keirnan stared at the orange Dodge in the parking lot for several minutes. There were shadows moving around it. He guessed both were male, but the shorter one could have been a really undefined tall woman, especially since the shorter one was definitely not in control of the situation.

  The taller one was holding a sword. Keirnan had no other word for it. It was a giant sword that looked like it would cut the shorter person in half either way the taller one used it. He’d wanted to display the bones of his last conquest here. The park had interesting acoustics that would make the find more delightful when the person realized no one could hear them screaming.

  However, the sword wielding maniac in the parking lot was a deterrent. Keirnan wasn’t a small guy. He was tall and muscular and he worked for a living, but that didn’t mean he could take on whoever the guy with the sword was. For starters, the sword looked close to four feet long and the man holding it appeared skinny. Keirnan knew he was a psychopath, but he also knew another psychopath when he saw one and the guy with the sword appeared to be a crazier psychopath than he was. Meaning, he’d lose that fight. He had no desire to end up on the wrong end sword being easily handled by a psychopath.

  Who even used swords anymore? Keirnan could read about it in the newspapers. He slowly backed his car up, leaving all his lights off. He did not want to be seen leaving this place by either of the people in the parking lot. One would wonder why he didn’t help, the other would consider him a threat. Keirnan had things to do. He couldn’t be found dead because of a misunderstanding.

  There were other parks. For that matter, there were other nights. He could wait and display the story tomorrow.

  This story needed to be displayed though. It mattered. Not because the person was important, but because her struggle had been. Her bones had told him about abuse and neglect, probably as a child. As an adult, she hadn’t fared much better. She’d tried to act innocent, but Keirnan had seen through it quickly. She had been desperate to find someone that night.

  She’d found him. It had been less than a month ago. He’d been drinking quietly, enjoying a few beers during one of the World Cup Baseball matches along with some nachos, when she had approached him. She had even offered to buy him a beer. He had declined and instead, ordered her a drink and him another. He’d even bought her dinner.

  Getting her to go home with him had been very easy. She’d followed him to his house, all the way south of the city, onto the dark country roads that made up rural Missouri. Her plates had read Kansas, meaning she was from the other side of the border. She had looked and acted like a city girl. Her following him all the way home had surprised him. He’d expected to get halfway there and see her turn around, go back to civilization and the lights of city life.

  He hadn’t needed to do anything special to kill her either. The moment she was parked and out of her car, she was all over him. Her shirt was off before they even got in the house. Keirnan had fought to maneuver her back towards his car, it had taken him maybe a minute to reach in, get the knife, bring it out, and stab her.

  She had not looked surprised. She had smiled at him. She closed her eyes and let herself bleed to death in his driveway without any fight. It was as if she had given up long before that
night. Once Keirnan had cleaned her bones, he had figured out why. There was no reason to fight when you were always a victim.

  Her story was as much about him as it was her. He had been a victim for many years. He had fought against it and won. He found his freedom and his peace with the death of his father, until his mother died. That had opened him up to the rage that now consumed him. He wanted to kill more men, but they were much harder to lure out of bars and clubs than women.

  His good looks and easy smile was hard for a woman to resist. Getting them to follow him or just go with him wasn’t all that hard. Even the ones who were unsure about leaving with him, eventually did it. He was charming and reassuring. Traits that he no doubt got from his psychopathic personality. They belied the rage that burnt within his soul and consumed his body.

  That rage needed to be quelled. Only when he displayed the stories of his victims did he feel it die down ever so slightly. Their bones freed them, just as displaying his father’s skeleton had freed him. It was all about the bones.

  He’d started with easy victims. Homeless people that could be killed quickly and without a fight. He’d worked up from there. Their bones told stories, but it also wreaked havoc on his barn. Most had been rotting before he got them to it. Gangrene and canker sores that oozed puss had covered their dirty bodies. Their feet were blackened by frost bite or disease or both. The smell of them would linger for days, despite the insects not caring one bit about what was going on with their flesh. Keirnan had learned that healthier people, people who weren’t already dying, didn’t smell as bad, alive or dead.